British Gas has just announced it’ll drop its standard tariff gas price by 10% from 19 February, and I’ve already received some overtly jaunty spam from the company about this. I’m told British Gas will be ‘providing [me] with cheaper energy’. Technically, this is true, but, as ever, the timing sucks.

That the price-drop is occurring in the middle of February, after the worst of the winter’s cold, is no surprise. It’s disappointing, what with oil prices tanking many months ago, but par for the course. After all, British Gas has already made its huge profits for the winter, and can now ‘afford’ to cut its prices and try and grab itself some decent PR while doing so.

The question is whether the company will get away with this cynical business step, and Ed Mayo of Watchdog Consumer Focus has already noted that “Energy price cuts are likely to be too little and too late to help consumers with this winter’s fuel bills” (source: BBC News); also, the 10% seems suspiciously low compared to the drop in petrol prices.

I’d say we can expect another drop around June—and a much bigger one. After all, British Gas will need another chance to crow, and dropping prices by a quarter or more during summer will barely hurt the company. After all, it can (and almost certainly will) hike prices up again come October anyway, ready for another cold winter.