Household gas bills could rise by more than £400 this year, as British Gas today signalled another price increase of 20 per cent.
The rise - likely within a matter of weeks - will take average domestic gas and electricity bills above £1,200 after a 15 per cent price rise in January.
Consumer group uSwitch believes households may need to prepare for price rises of as much as 46 per cent for the year as a whole.
"Including the 15 per cent rise in January, the worst case suggests bills could rise by as much as £415 in one year," said uSwitch director Tim Wolfenden.
"We believe there could be a bunch of rises by the end of the year. We foresee increases in August and September, but then a real killer additional rise at the end of the year."
British Gas's parent company Centrica left customers and shareholders at its annual meeting in London today in little doubt they should be braced for far larger bills.
The company said the global oil price, which has soared to $125 a barrel, has also seen the price of gas rocket. British Gas says the amount it has to pay for gas to supply UK households means it can no longer make the profit its City shareholders demand.
"We will take necessary action to deliver reasonable margins in the retail business," Centrica chairman Roger Carr was due to tell the meeting.
The wholesale price of gas has been rising throughout the spring, and the outlook is not getting better.
Forward prices are nearly double what they were last year, with suppliers having to pay up to 85p a therm next winter compared with 48p in the winter just gone.
Asked when a price rise might come, a British Gas spokesman said: "That depends on what happens to the oil price, which has been highly volatile." The spokesman refused to be drawn on how much British prices might have to go up.
However, Mark Todd, director at price comparison website energyhelpline.com, said: "With this announcement, the UK's biggest energy supplier is telling consumers very clearly that massive price rises are coming their way."
Jenny Saunders, chief executive of fuel poverty charity National Energy Action, said a 30 per cent price increase could force 1.2 million UK households into fuel poverty and "completely reverse progress made in this area over the past 10 years".
She added: "Low-income families with children, the elderly and vulnerable households will be hit hardest, but a growing amount of households will be feeling the pinch."
British Gas, which has some 17million domestic customers, effectively sets the benchmark on prices for the entire UK industry.
The Daily Mail Cost of Living Index has reported at 19.1 per cent increase in the price of a shopping basket of food and drink essentials.
Government estimates indicate that for every one per cent increase in fuel bills, another 40,000 households is plunged into fuel poverty - spending more than 10 per cent of disposable income on heat and light.
A 46 per cent increase in a year would suggest an extra 1.84million homes would be classed as fuel poor. This group face a nightmare choice between heating and eating.
North Sea gas supplies are declining rapidly and the Britain is becoming more reliant on expensive imports from the Continent via pipeline.
Gas prices in Europe are - for historic reasons - tied to changes in the price of crude oil, which has soared above 126 dollars a barrel in recent days.
There are concerns that prices are also being forced up because European power giants are actively rationing or blocking supplies to the UK.
Centrica said that, on average, month-ahead prices for gas and power were up 92 per cent and 100 per cent respectively from the same period last year.
Shares in Centrica, which have underperformed the FTSE 100 index by almost 22 percent in the past 12 months, were down 1.6 percent at 283 pence in early trading.
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