Uniper, once Europe’s largest importer of Russian gas, is among the hardest-hit companies by the war in Ukraine, with its shares having plunged nearly 93 per cent this year.
The company said on Thursday that net losses in the first nine months of the year had reached €40.4bn, against a €4.7bn loss recorded in the same period last year.
Soaring gas prices have forced Uniper to buy more expensively on the spot market after Moscow choked supplies to Europe.
“To ensure customers’ supply security, Uniper has for some time been procuring gas at significantly higher prices and . . . has thus recorded considerable losses because the replacement costs of procuring new gas are not being passed through to consumers,” said Tiina Tuomela, chief financial officer.
The war in Ukraine has plunged Uniper into crisis, with the company losing millions of euros every day.
Berlin said in September it would intervene with a €29bn bailout, amid fears a collapse of the country’s largest gas importer could spread devastating waves across Germany’s energy system and economy.
“We and the federal government are currently finalising the details of the support measures,’‘ said Tuomela, adding that implementation of the “stabilisation package” was her “highest priority”.
The German government’s intervention to save Uniper from insolvency will include buying out the group’s previous owner Fortum, an €8bn capital injection and a line of credit from state-owned KfW Bank totalling €18bn, of which Uniper said it had already drawn €14bn.
The €40.4bn figure for the first nine months comes close to full-year losses recorded by some of the worst-hit companies at the height of the financial crisis, including the $50bn loss reported by Freddie Mac in 2008.
Uniper said the €40.4bn loss comprised “roughly €10bn of realised costs for replacement volumes, and roughly €31bn of anticipated future losses from valuation effects on derivatives and provision build-ups related to the Russian gas curtailments”.
In the three months to the end of September, Uniper’s quarterly loss was almost €28bn.
Analysts at UBS said the figures revealed “further detail on the very large pressures facing the Uniper business”. The energy company’s share price sunk 3 per cent on Thursday morning, before recovering slightly to a drop just over 1 per cent.
Net debt in the first nine months of the year jumped to €10.9bn, compared with €324mn last year. Revenues of €213bn were almost triple the €78bn in the same period last year.
Tuomela said the company was “working intensively” to restructure its gas portfolio, with the aim to end losses related to suspended Russian gas deliveries before 2024.
“Uniper will play a key role in ensuring Germany’s supply of power and gas [this] winter and subsequent years,” she said, adding that the company was moving forward with the construction of Germany’s first LNG import terminal.