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Originally Posted by Chrysalis
What's stopping Centrica paying for it from their record profits?
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The law. Publicly listed companies are compelled to act in their shareholders’ interests. If they are seen to be making decisions that they know will have less of a return on investment than other alternatives the directors are at risk of being pursued by their shareholders.
For sure there will be times when a private company will lean on this excuse as a bargaining ploy when it thinks there is grant money to be screwed out of the government, but it is basically true. They aren’t in it for the good of the nation, they’re in it to make even bigger profits.
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Also what's stopping the government from constructing their own gas reserve units that they own?
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Nothing, and there’s a very good argument that they should do exactly that, as it is obviously a strategic, national security issue that the market is unable to cater for. Write to your MP.
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I have always found state's funding private owned infrastructure a flawed model.
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Providing the State’s involvement is treated as an investment from which the state gets some measurable return then it can work. But if it’s just helping companies not to invest money they probably would have done if left alone, not so much.