First a huge loss and now a profit again: the nationalized energy supplier Uniper published on Wednesday preliminary figures for business between January and March, and the bottom line was a profit of 451 million euros. In the same quarter of the previous year, a loss of almost 700 million euros had been incurred. In the full year 2022, the Düsseldorf-based company even accumulated 19 billion euros in losses. The delivery stop for Russian gas was behind the high shortfalls. And behind the gains is the fact that gas prices have fallen sharply since last summer.
Uniper is by far Germany’s largest gas importer. The group, with its 7,000 employees, supplies more than 500 municipal utilities and 500 other industrial customers with the raw material. Since Moscow cut exports, the company has had to buy the gas on the market at high prices in order to fulfill old supply contracts. To avert bankruptcy, the federal government nationalized the company in December. But now Uniper is announcing that the purchase of replacement volumes no longer led to losses in the first quarter – “due to the significant drop in gas prices,” as CFO Jutta Dönges says. Therefore, according to its own assessment, the company will not need any further cash injections from the federal government for the time being. However, Uniper warns in the announcement that losses and new capital requirements cannot be ruled out should the gas price rise sharply again.
Uniper not only trades in gas, but also has coal, gas and hydroelectric power plants in Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Hungary and Sweden. In Sweden, the German state-owned company is explosively also involved in nuclear power plants. Business in the first quarter obviously went well not only in gas trading, but also in power plants. The Düsseldorf-based company will announce details on Thursday next week. The group now expects a profit for the year as a whole. Previously, the forecast was only that the results would be better than in the disastrous year 2022.
Russia takes control of the subsidiary
But there was not only good news for Uniper on Wednesday. The Russian government announced that it had placed the local subsidiary of the group called Unipro under state administration. The same applies to the Russian assets of the former Uniper parent company Fortum from Finland. Unipro operates five gas and coal-fired power plants with 4,300 employees. Uniper wants to withdraw from Russia anyway, but complained in February that a sale would require the approval of the president, i.e. Vladimir Putin himself. And stand out. At the same time, Uniper no longer had de facto control over the subsidiary in Russia, it was said at the time. Therefore, Uniper wrote off the value of the subsidiary in the balance sheet almost completely.