Billion grave? Connection line for Nord Stream 2 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Photo: Stefan Sauer / picture alliance / dpaIn view of the threatened US sanctions, the energy company Uniper does not rule out the possibility that the controversial Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 will not be completed. The US approach increases the likelihood that there will be delays in the construction of the tube or that the project will not be completed at all, the group explained in the risk report on the half-year figures. In the event of failure, Uniper may have to adjust the value of the loan made available for the project.
The pipeline is intended to transport gas from Russia to Europe. Formally, it belongs to the Russian gas giant Gazprom alone. However, five western corporations, including Uniper, participated as "financial investors" in the project, which cost almost ten billion euros. A failure of the pipeline would also affect companies such as Wintershall Dea with its shareholders BASF, Shell and Engie, who are involved in the construction and operation of the pipeline. At the end of July, the Austrian energy company OMV, which was also involved, demanded that there should be a political response from the Europeans to the sanctions threats from the USA.
The 1200-kilometer tube, which runs largely parallel to the Nord Stream pipeline, which was opened in 2011, is almost complete. Only one last section in Danish waters around the island of Bornholm is still missing, where the use of a Russian laying ship as a replacement for a Swiss specialist company withdrawn for fear of US sanctions was recently approved. But now US politicians are threatening the German port of Sassnitz, which serves as the basis for the operation, with "financial destruction".
Despite the pipeline uncertainties, Uniper is meanwhile a little more optimistic and is raising its annual forecast slightly. The Düsseldorf company is now expecting an adjusted operating result (EBIT) between 800 million and one billion euros. Previously, the lower limit was 750 million euros. Uniper announced this on Tuesday in Düsseldorf. The management is also improving the adjusted net income: The profit should be between 600 and 800 million euros. Here the lower value was previously at 550 million euros.
The energy company was able to continue its positive development in the second quarter, but experts had expected a little more. The adjusted EBIT after the first six months is 691 million euros after 308 million euros in the same period of the previous year. Adjusted net income rose from 189 million euros in the first half of the year to 527 million euros.
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The group announced that the momentum from the first quarter has now decreased somewhat. Overall, Uniper benefited in the first half of the year primarily from the optimizations in the gas business in the first quarter. The group was able to compensate for slightly lower production volumes with higher electricity prices. On the stock exchange, the shares initially went down. On Tuesday morning, Uniper's papers lost about 1.4 percent.
Uniper emerged from Eon's conventional power plant and energy trading business and has been majority owned by the Finnish state-owned Fortum since March.