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Siemens Energy boss Christian Bruch: Great concern
Photo: SVEN SIMON / IMAGO
Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch advocates keeping the communication channel open to Russian President Vladimir Putin at this point in time.
A military escalation will have economic consequences, said Bruch when presenting the company's quarterly figures.
The focus must be on solving the political conflict.
He sees the development with great concern.
Bruch also sits on the board of the Eastern Committee of German Business.
Of course, Siemens will always act within the framework set by politics, said the head of the energy technology group with a view to possible economic sanctions against Russia.
A meeting between German business representatives and Putin is planned for early March.
According to the current status, he will take part in it.
Bruch says he always experienced these talks as an amazingly open format.
German politics is always involved in this dialogue.
Bruch criticized that it was wrong to focus solely on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the discussion about economic consequences.
That's too one-dimensional.
There is a strong interdependence between Germany and Russia in the energy sector that goes far beyond the new pipeline.
Siemens Energy does business in both Russia and Ukraine, but the company can manage the potential economic consequences of the conflict.
Siemens Energy achieves sales in the three-digit million euro range in Russia.
Bruch said that the past two to three years have already shown that Russian customers are increasingly relying on local suppliers.
Siemens Energy makes a loss in the first quarter
In the first quarter of its fiscal year, the energy technology group slipped into the red.
From October to the end of December, Siemens Energy made a net loss of 240 million euros, the company said.
In the same period last year, a profit of 99 million euros was achieved.
The reason for the loss are losses at the Spanish wind energy subsidiary Siemens Gamesa.
While business with gas and steam power plants increased significantly in the first quarter, the wind power subsidiary Gamesa made heavy losses.
The reasons are delivery bottlenecks, rising raw material costs and project delays.
Bruch announced that it would continue to support Gamesa in the restructuring of the onshore wind turbine business, which had been weakening for years.
Gamesa CEO Andreas Nauen had to go, Jochen Eickholt, board member of Siemens Energy, will take over the management of the wind power subsidiary from March.
He will be replaced on the board by Karim Amin.
The growth in gas and power shows that the division is on the right track, said Bruch.
So far, the high price of gas has not affected demand for gas-fired power plants and turbines.
The supply chain problem is not only a risk factor for Gamesa.
The group is assuming ongoing impairments in the global supply chains, it said.
The corona pandemic is also still a factor of uncertainty.
"Therefore, bottlenecks in materials and components and/or lack of freight capacities can continue to burden our business activities."
mhs/mmq/Reuters
