EU gas giant reports €40 billion loss

Germany’s largest gas importer Uniper on Thursday reported a staggering €40 billion ($39 billion) net loss through September, citing diminishing supplies from Russia as the major reason.

“Reduced Russian gas deliveries have a significant adverse impact on Uniper’s results in the first nine months of 2022… The IFRS-net loss of around €40 billion contains roughly €10 billion of realized costs for replacement volumes, and roughly €31 billion of anticipated future losses from valuation effects on derivatives and provision built-ups related to the Russian gas curtailments as of September 30, 2022,” the company said in a press release on its website.

The company noted that Russian gas supplies to the company ceased completely in the third quarter, forcing it to purchase gas on the spot market at significantly higher prices.

“Uniper has for some time been procuring gas at significantly higher prices and, as is well known, has thus recorded considerable losses because the replacement costs of procuring new gas aren’t being passed through to consumers,” the company’s CFO Tiina Tuomela said in a statement commenting on the report, as cited by Bloomberg.

Uniper is one of the EU energy companies hardest hit by reduced energy supplies from Russia. It is set to receive a €30 billion aid package by the end of the year from the German government, which will result in the energy giant being nationalized. Berlin fears that if the company fails to stay afloat it could have a domino effect on the country’s energy sector.

According to Reuters, Uniper’s reported net loss is among the biggest in Germany’s corporate history.

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