Britain's gas supplies are threatened by shortages in the next decade, as electricity companies build more gas-fired power stations and domestic gas production declines, according to a report commissioned by the industry.

As a result, gas prices are likely to rise well above today's levels. The warning comes as Eon UK, one of the country's biggest energy suppliers, cautions that it has reached "five minutes to midnight" in the effort to provide the electricity Britain will need in the 2010s.