Dusseldorf More than half of the money from the German gas levy goes to the Düsseldorf-based energy group Uniper. That’s what CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach said at the presentation of the group’s half-year figures on Wednesday.
A total of twelve companies are expected to be reimbursed 34 billion euros for the period up to April 2024. According to the current status, Uniper alone will probably receive more than 50 percent of this.
Some gas importers are currently in a precarious position, sourcing gas from old contracts with Russian gas giant Gazprom. But for months he has been delivering significantly less than the contractually guaranteed gas quantities to Germany.
However, the importers themselves have to stick to their supply contracts and deliver the agreed quantities of gas to their customers. To do this, they buy gas on the market at current, high prices, which they then have to pass on at much lower prices agreed upon when the contract was concluded.
As a result, Uniper is currently making billions in losses by supplying more than 100 municipal utilities and industrial companies. The company is not only the largest gas importer in Germany, but also obtains a significantly larger share of the imported gas volume from Russia than its competitors.
The gas surcharge is intended to reimburse companies like Uniper for 90 percent of their losses due to increased procurement costs. This is paid for by German households, whose gas price increases by 2.419 cents per kilowatt hour.
>> Read here: That means the gas surcharge for consumers and companies
Uniper desperately needs the money: The group reported a net loss of more than twelve billion euros for the first half of the year. Uniper also expects a loss for the year as a whole and for the coming year 2023.
Uniper shares fell by more than nine percent at the start of trading on Wednesday morning. Since the beginning of the year, the papers have lost a good 80 percent of their value.
Uniper: Losses from procurement of replacement gas are simply too high
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. But 6.5 billion euros of the loss is related to gas supply cuts from Russia.
Uniper boss Maubach said: “In Germany there is not a single energy company that such a development would not bring to its knees.” The current situation has brought Uniper to the brink of insolvency, although the majority of the businesses are making profits. The losses from the gas replacement procurement are simply too high.
Uniper only expects an improvement over the coming years. CFO Tiina Tuomela said in a statement: “We expect earnings to improve in 2023 and are aiming to break even from 2024.”
Because of the dramatic situation, the German federal government put together an aid package for Uniper in July, which will initially give the company 7.7 billion euros. In addition, the state wants to take a 30 percent stake in the energy supplier. The stabilization package still has to be examined and approved at European level, after which Uniper will have to have the agreement approved by shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting in autumn.
Since the rescue package was decided in July, the situation for Uniper has deteriorated again. Because now Gazprom is no longer even delivering 40 percent of the promised quantities through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, but only 20 percent. The losses for Uniper are all the greater.
Maubach said this Wednesday: “Against the background of the increasingly difficult framework conditions, we have been working on the design and specification of the agreement in the past few weeks.”
“Gazprom brought us to the brink of bankruptcy”
As recently as July, Uniper had announced that it was currently paying up to a billion euros a month. Uniper boss 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.
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.
>> Read also: That’s how dependent Gazprom is on Europe
Although the federal government’s aid package has not yet been approved, Uniper has already received aid in the form of a credit line from KfW totaling nine billion euros. According to Maubach, Uniper has had to claim around five billion euros of this so far.
In addition, Uniper is also attempting to obtain compensation from Gazprom through legal channels. Maubach said that all possible legal steps are being examined: “Gazprom has brought our company to the brink of insolvency with its actions. And of course we will try everything available to hold our gas supplier liable.”
With its longstanding relationship with Russia, Uniper is likely to struggle for some time. Not only does the company depend on gas from Russia, it also has a subsidiary called Unipro that operates power plants in Russia. Uniper has wanted to get rid of the subsidiary for a long time, but in the current situation that seems hopeless. When asked whether the sale was progressing, Maubach said on Wednesday: “You can imagine how difficult the situation is.” It is currently not easy to carry out such transactions.
According to Maubach, Uniper also wants to look at new business areas. On the one hand, the company wants to restructure its own gas portfolio in the future. As soon as the planned LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven is expected to go into operation in winter, around a tenth of Germany’s annual consumption of LNG can be imported.
In addition, Uniper could also potentially be considered as the operator of new gas-fired power plants should Germany one day want to build them in order to phase out coal-fired power more quickly.
Of course, Germany would first have to have enough gas sources to no longer be dependent on Russia.
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