Wholesale gas price set to stay low

Analysts said wholesale day-ahead contracts might fall by another 5-10 percent to around 30 pence per therm after losing about 40 percent since early February as an unusually long cold spell came to an end.

Recession has eroded energy demand, while more liquefied natural gas cargoes are expected to arrive in the country and most nuclear power plants are back in operation after closures to relieve gas-fired generators.

"The outlook for summer is fairly weak at the moment because the supply/demand situation is pretty comfortable," said Niall Trimble, director of the Energy Contract Company, a consulting firm.

"It probably would tend to increase pressure on the big six (utilities companies) to reduce their domestic gas prices. Only two of them have actually reduced their prices at all."

Despite pressure from the government to cut bills to household consumers, only Scottish and Southern Energy and British Gas have so far done so this year. They cut prices by 4 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

The six utilities, including RWE npower, EDF Energy, E.ON UK and Iberdrola's Scottish Power, raised bills twice for both gas and electricity last year, blaming soaring wholesale energy prices since 2007.