Uniper is in crisis.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf Gas prices on the Dutch TTF exchange rose to a new all-time high on Thursday: a megawatt hour currently costs 300 euros. This is bad news for the ailing energy company Uniper. The group could need more money from the state than previously thought.
Because the main supplier, Russia, sends almost no more gas to Europe, Uniper has had to procure expensive replacements in daily trading for months. At the beginning of July, the people of Düsseldorf even had to ask for state aid. The federal government is taking a stake of almost 30 percent in Uniper and is supporting Germany’s largest gas trader with loans worth billions.
According to insiders, however, given the ever-increasing gas prices, they could be too tight. The state bank KfW could now be forced to expand its commitment to Uniper.
“The high gas prices don’t make the situation any easier,” said an industry insider to the Handelsblatt. The Reuters news agency first reported on it. Uniper itself did not want to comment on the rumors on Thursday.
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It is still unclear whether an increase is possible without further ado. However, one is in talks, according to industry circles. So far, KfW has secured credit lines of nine billion euros. Uniper had already drawn five billion of these by mid-August.
The situation has deteriorated significantly
Since the rescue package was decided in July, the situation for Uniper has once again deteriorated significantly. Gazprom is now delivering just 20 percent of the promised quantities through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. The less gas is delivered, the greater the losses for Uniper.
In the first six months of the year alone, the group posted a net loss of more than twelve billion euros. Uniper also expects a loss for the year as a whole and for the coming year 2023.
The high net loss in the first half of the year is partly due to already known write-downs on Uniper’s Russia-related businesses – for example for the Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 and power plants in Russia. However, 6.5 billion euros of the loss is related to cuts in gas supplies from Russia.
As recently as July, Uniper had announced that it was currently paying up to a billion euros a month. Uniper boss Klaus-Dieter Maubach expected a total loss of six billion euros by the end of September. According to the current status, it should even be 6.5 billion euros.
>> Read here: List complete: These eleven companies want the money from the gas levy
According to Maubach, Uniper is currently making losses of more than 100 million euros a day. That would correspond to a minus of up to three billion euros a month – on some days, however, the losses are also significantly lower. Uniper only expects an improvement over the coming years.
The gas surcharge should also help to cushion the ongoing additional costs. It was introduced by the federal government to protect troubled gas traders like Uniper from bankruptcy. From October 1, 2022 to April 1, 2024, they can recover 90 percent of their additional costs via a pay-as-you-go system.
According to initial estimates by Trading Hub Europe, the sum could be up to 34 billion euros. According to reports, more than half of these will go to Uniper. For the first price period, a surcharge of 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour applies, which is to be billed to all gas customers, companies and households, from October.
However, the payment to Uniper and Co. could be delayed. Municipal utilities and energy suppliers report an immense amount of bureaucracy when it comes to implementation. “It is not clear how we are to pass the levy on to our customers. We don’t know how to deal with fixed price commitments or shortened deadlines and so on,” criticized Eon boss Leonhard Birnbaum at an industry conference on Thursday. According to the manager, it was not clear beforehand that you had to inform your customers individually. Eon alone has 1.5 million gas customers.
More: Divided energy world: Why RWE makes billions in profits while Uniper needs to be rescued.
