Guardian: US's cheap energy pricing out UK industry

UK industry and manufacturing are being put at a serious competitive disadvantage by the low price of energy in rival nations, chiefly the US, according to a major report published on Tuesday.

As much as 10% of Europe's market for energy-intensive industrial products, including iron and steel, glass and chemicals, could go to competitor nations within the next decade, it said. The finding has profound consequences for jobs, the economic recovery and climate change policies, and will send shockwaves through European industry.

The International Energy Agency – regarded as the gold standard for energy data – warned that Europe, Japan and other nations were being outpaced by the US in competitive terms, because of the very low price of energy in America resulting from the shale gas boom there. In its annual World Energy Outlook, the organisation warned that the price differential was likely to endure for decades.

Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA and one of the world's foremost analysts of energy, told the Guardian: "Today, there is a substantial gap between the US and Europe in gas and electricity prices. This is a serious problem for Europe. It's even more serious because this differential in prices will remain for at least the next 20 years."  MORE