"In the last two, everybody has been saying you won't be able to cook your turkey because there are no power stations available. That was - and still is - not the case." His reassurances are timely. On Tuesday, the Met Office predicted that this winter would be colder than average. That followed the forecast from National Grid earlier this month warning that there was only 11 days gas supply, which Buchanan calls a "very sober report". This former chartered accountant and utilities analyst is a sensible man. After providing his glad tidings on the turkey, he quickly adds the rider that "a regulator can never give anyone a guarantee they won't be cut off, because for instance you might have a network failure".
And, he notes, the energy supply to households would be at risk only if there was a "one in 50" severe winter, last seen in 1963.He also won't be drawn on whether we should build more nuclear power stations, a hot topic fuelled by Tony Blair's comments earlier this month that a decision would have to be made by the end of next year "It's not for me to comment Our position on nuclear is that it is a generation type We just don't go there. I'm starting to sound like a broken record," he adds in apology.But as well as saying all the sensible things that regulators need to, he is prone to bouts of excitement: a scribbled graph showing gas prices here, a diagram on gas supply there. And he certainly didn't join Ofgem for a quiet life.Quite the opposite. "One of the reasons the job was so attractive to me, looking out to the regulatory and market remit we have, was that it was clear we were reaching a series of crossroads I knew it was not going to be dull. The supply/demand side could be quite interesting going forward." Translating the regulator speak, this could mean something like, "bring it on".That is not to say he is glib about electricity and gas prices. Domestic utility bills have increased by around a fifth over the past 18 months for households and will rise further. Fuel costs for businesses have gone up even more on the back of high oil prices and a shortage of gas to the UK, which has pushed gas prices for this winter up by almost half compared to last year "It is very uncomfortable for industry.
I take no pleasure in seeing industry in the situation that it is," he says. "But our remit from a positive point of view is to say: 'Look, consumer, it is extremely unfortunate that your bill is going up. How can you try and ameliorate that?' "He mentions one unnamed steel manufacturer that he knows who is planning to shut down production this winter. After a process of elimination, it turns out that this is the Kent-based Thames Steel. Its finance director, Saeed Khan, tells The Independent on Sunday that it has suspended production for three months mainly to fit a new rolling mill, but he confirms this is also partly down to soaring energy prices. "They are killing us," he says, which isn't surprising as fuel costs account for around 15 per cent of total overheads.
