Germany’s largest gas importer – Uniper – has been struggling to replace missing Russian gas supplies as the company’s losses are mounting, its CEO, Klaus-Dieter Maubach, admitted this week. The company might also run out of the money provided by Berlin in the form of an aid package later this month, he warned.
Amid reduced gas supplies from Russia, which Moscow blamed on technical issues and Western sanctions, Uniper had to substitute the missing volumes by buying gas at high prices on the spot market and selling it to its customers at cheaper, long-term prices. As a result, the company reported a loss of more than €12 billion ($12 billion) – the biggest one in German corporate history – as early as in July, prompting Berlin to intervene.
The government covered the company’s losses by acquiring a 30% stake in Uniper and provided it with an additional €7.7 billion ($7.7 billion) aid package designed to help it hold out until the fourth quarter of 2022. Now, Uniper admits it would not be enough.
The company would hit the financial aid limit “definitely … earlier,” Maubach told journalists on the sidelines of the Gastech conference in Milan. “Most likely we will reach that ceiling in September already,” he added.