The cold facts that have fuelled the fears over reserves of gas

The Arctic snap is apparently costing the country's economy up to 690m a day, during yesterday morning's rush hour there were 1,200 traffic jams, by midday the AA had attended more than 7,000 breakdowns and in the past three weeks council gritters have spread 200,000 tonnes of salt on 1.7 million miles of road.

As temperatures refused to budge much above freezing, 44 per cent of employees took the opportunity to work from home and with many of them turning up the thermostats, the Conservatives decided to join the numbers game, claiming the UK had only eight days worth of gas left in the Rough undersea storage facility. It didn't seem like a lot.

However, while the inference was that if the icy conditions continue, we could all be forced to live without hot water and central heating, behind the stark figure lies a much more complex story.

The UK's storage facilities have always been seen as an insurance policy, only supplying a fraction of the gas we need. Even at full capacity they can only hold up to 16 days worth of gas and the recent spike in demand – on Monday when the icy temperatures combined with a mass return to work it was a third higher than normal – inevitably meant those reserves had to be dipped into.

However, the wintry weather has provided those in the energy business with much food for thought.

Once upon a time, most of Britain's gas came from the North Sea, but as the gas fields begin to run dry, we will become more reliant on foreign suppliers.

Earlier this week, the National Grid was forced to issue a Gas Balance Alert for only the second time ever after a problem with one of its offshore suppliers. Effectively, it called for big users like power plants to curb use and asked for extra supplies to be piped in from Belgium and Norway. All did as they were told and any potential crisis

was averted.

However, while most agree the country is unlikely to run out of gas any time soon, the dependency on Continental imports is fuelling calls for

the doubling of the UK's own storage facilities.

"We do need to look at where this country's gas supplies are going to come from in the future," says Ian Parrett, of energy analysts Inenco. "Currently around 50 per cent still comes from the North Sea and while those reserves are not falling through the floor, they are declining and being replaced by supplies from Norway, Belgium and liquid natural gas which is brought to the UK by sea.

"The problem with the foreign pipeline which triggered the GBA earlier this week may have only reduced supplies by a relatively small amount for a relatively short time, but it was enough to highlight potential problems in the future.

"Since 1990, the need for imports has increased significantly in the UK while storage has lagged behind. As we take in more imported gas, then we become more exposed to prices on the global market. This doesn't mean prices will always be higher, but they will fluctuate more.

"Dealing with these fluctuating prices does mean that suppliers may put a premium on prices to cover the financial risks. We could cushion ourselves from this by increasing the amount of gas storage. The Rough storage facility can put around 40 million cubic metres of gas into the system each day. If we had a second facility of this size then the reduced flow we saw this week would not have been a problem.

"However, the problem at the moment is that while there are plans for more storage, the money hasn't been forthcoming. It would cost in the region of 500m to build a facility, which doesn't seem a lot when you compare it to the amount used to bail out the banks."

With France boasting a maximum storage capacity of 91 days and Germany up to 73 days, the pressure to improve Britain's gas supplies will likely continue long after the present frost has begun to thaw.