Centrica sees mild weather dent profits
CENTRICA yesterday said that milder weather in the UK had reduced energy consumption and dented profits.
But the British Gas owner said its production and exploration business was booming – with profits up a third – as commodity prices rise.
The company’s full-year adjusted operating profit was up one per cent year-on-year in 2011 at £2.42bn.
The results include a 30 per cent fall in operating profits at its residential energy division, British Gas, to £522m.
However Centrica is expecting a stronger 2012 as it invests £1.4bn in the business – half of that in upstream operations.
Finance director Nick Luff told City A.M.: “Our oil assets in the North Sea will help us and we have diversified business which means that we can offset problems with one part.
“The warm weather did not help in our retail business but our figures are resilient.”
Centrica on Wednesday announced that it had sealed a deal for French oil major Total’s assets in the North Sea.
Centrica, already the third largest producer of gas on the UK continental shelf, said it plans to increase upstream UK gas and oil production by more than 25 per cent this year.
Chief executive Sam Laidlaw added: “We had high gas and oil prices driven by the Arab spring and events in Japan.
“The other big factor was that we were going from one of the coldest years on record in 2010 to one of the warmest, which has an impact on consumption.”
The company said the number of UK residential customers dropped by one per cent, or nearly 100,000, to 15.9m over the year.