Oct. 4--Scottish & Southern Energy, one of the UK's top six energy companies, is expected to announce a near doubling of interim profits next month, sparking fury among customers.

The profits look like being so much better than market analysts had forecast that SSE last week issued a trading update saying the surplus would be "significantly higher" than this time last year.

Britain's second largest energy company, with nine million customers, is forecast to reveal that pre-tax profits have soared to nearly £600 million, compared with £302.6 million for the six months to the end of September, 2008.

According to McKinnon & Clarke, the UK's largest independent energy consultancy, the Scottish & Southern declaration will be the first in a series of profit announcements that will enrage the public. Though many of the UK's major energy groups are owned by foreign companies, which do not disclose their results, analysts forecast a profits bonanza.

Since the summer of 2008, wholesale gas prices have dropped from a peak of more than £1 a therm to 36p a therm. Over the same period, wholesale electricity prices have fallen by about 60 per cent.

But the cost to domestic customers is as much as 40 per cent higher for gas and 15 per cent more for electricity.

David Hunter, an energy consultant at McKinnon & Clarke, said: "The failure of the suppliers to pass on the massive reductions in energy prices, which they have been enjoying for nearly a year, is approaching scandalous proportions."

Hunter is calling on the Government to step in to force through price cuts. "The big six energy companies -- Eon, Scottish & Southern, EDF, Powergen, ScottishPower and Centrica -- have a stranglehold on the means of supply [power generation] and dominate the retail market. Clearly competition is not working."

The Government and Ofgem have been putting pressure on the "Big Six" to reduce prices to reflect falling wholesale prices.

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