E.ON sales hit by fall in customers
WARMER weather and fewer customers in some German regions curbed first-quarter sales at E.ON’s gas unit compared with a year earlier, the utility said yesterday.
As the German gas market leader, E.ON’s activities are a benchmark for the health of central European gas markets.
Its Global Gas division sold 244.6bn kilowatt hours of gas in the three months to March compared with 252.4bn kWh in the same 2010 period, according to its quarterly report.
E.ON’s German sales, which accounted for 55 per cent of the total, reported 13bn kWh lower gas sales, due mainly to “customers losses and weather related influences”.
National German gas consumption last year rose 4.2 per cent to 942.3bn kilowatt hours.
E.ON’s Global Gas division categorises sales via its own regional firms and those to industry and distributors in Germany, Europe’s biggest single gas market, and in Hungary.
It also holds responsibility for procurement, storage and transport of pipeline and liquefied natural gas.
The unit’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell by 83 per cent to €138m (£120m) in the three months due to margin pressure in the wholesale sector.