Uniper suffers eye-watering £35bn losses after Russian gas cuts
Uniper has suffered the biggest net losses in German corporate history over the first nine months of 2022, following a Russian supply squeeze on the continent.
The energy giant and gas importer, which is set to be nationalised, recorded a £34.8bn (€40bn) net loss over the three quarter trading window.
These losses were driven by the eye-watering price of replacing halted Russian gas volumes on the spot market, at a cost of €10bn.
This reflects the severity of Russia’s decision to end a decade-long supply relationship with Europe, most notably Germany, which is now wreaking havoc with the continent’s energy sector.
Not only is Uniper the biggest casualty of the crisis so far, its losses even dwarfing the disastrous €25bn bath Deutsche Telekom took in 2002.
Since the start of the year, shares in Uniper have lost 93 per cent of their value, shrivelling its current value to a paltry €1.1bn from €15.2bn in January.
It caused daily losses of more than €100m, when gas prices spiked over the summer, a number has come down to less than 10 million per day at the end of October as markets have cooled off, Uniper said.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed to nationalise Uniper in September, committing €29bn to prop up Germany’s largest gas importer, and stave off what it feared could be a Lehman-style collapse of energy firms.
It has since set aside extra support, potentially totalling €40bn.
So far, Uniper has received €18bn worth of credit lines from state lender KfW, including €14bn drawn down as of the end of October.