BUSINESSMEN such as Tom Crotty, who runs the chemicals company Ineos Chlor, are having a hard time deciding whether to laugh or cry. The price of gas, a vital source of energy for British business, has rocketed in the past few weeks. It peaked on Thursday at more than 150p per therm, five times the price at the beginning of the month. Crotty has had to cut production by a third. Myriad other businesses that use a lot of energy — steel, brick, paper and chemicals — are doing the same.

The tragedy is that everyone saw this banana skin coming. North Sea production has been steadily falling (gas by about 13% a year, oil more slowly) for several years. The old, publicly owned British Gas never built big storage reservoirs against a cold winter, relying instead on production contracts that meant it could vary its take from gas producers by up to 50% and not pay over the odds. Deregulation of the power market soon broke up that old safety buffer, and our native supply of gas, and safeguards against shortages, have been slowly whittled away.

As we point out in our feature, this winter’s problem was identified five years ago. After hammering away at the Department of Trade and Industry for the next two years, the trade group that represents big energy users was so enraged at the lack of action that it wrote an open letter to ministers complaining that difficult issues were being kicked into the long grass.

Not that the government wasn’t thinking about energy. While the gas problem was gradually building, DTI ministers spent two years preparing a policy on — wait for it — wind power. Somehow I doubt Crotty & Co will be relying on windmills when it comes to making decisions about shutting down production or, more likely, moving it offshore.

Energy ministers might also consider whether the market for gas is behaving as a market should. Gas users have long been worried about the market power of the small number of big producers and shippers, and the relatively illiquid nat-ure of gas trading that makes price spikes almost inevitable. Ofgem and the Financial Services Authority gave the market the once-over a few years ago and found nothing wrong, but idle factories this winter and — maybe — the lights going out on British high streets might make them think again.

If you were of a very Machiavellian turn of mind, you might wonder what the government’s real energy agenda was. Tony Blair and other ministers have let it be known in recent weeks that they are considering a return to building nuclear power plants to solve Britain’s energy and emissions problems. The public debate on such a controversial topic might have been expected to take several years — but if the lights start going out in hospitals this winter, it will be over in a month.

Thanks a billion

IS America going to save the world again? Judging by what happened in the US on Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — they are making a damn good fist of it. Either that or the consumer is determined to go down fighting.

The earlier impression was that the consumer had been knocked out by higher petrol prices, heating bills, a cooling housing market and rising interest rates. But on Black Friday — so named because this day after Thanksgiving generates gallons of black ink for retailers — some 130m to 150m Americans turned out and spent more than the GDP of three-quarters of the world’s countries.

Wal-Mart alone expected to ring up $2 billion (£1.2 billion) in sales. Parking lots at malls from Birmingham, Alabama, to Portland, Maine, were filled by the time the stores opened at 1am. Wally Brewster of General Growth Properties, which owns or operates 200 shopping malls in 44 states, said the turnout was “wild”. The early shoppers were there to shop, “not just for the fun of it”, he said.

The hot sellers were Microsoft’s Xbox 360, priced at $400, some 40% below cost as Microsoft tries to buy into living rooms. Others included Razr mobile phones, and 51in Toshiba plasma TVs at $899.99. The lesson: there is still hope for British shopkeepers, and boy do they need it.

AIM shame