Fluffy argued to STT on Sunday that Fortum has shown its commitment to helping the subsidiary survive the natural gas crisis by granting it an eight billion euro credit line, which consists of both a shareholder loan and parent company guarantees.
“However, as the majority owner of Fortum, we do not understand how it would be possible for Fortum to obtain even more of Uniper’s capital under these circumstances,” he commented to the news agency.
Uniper, Germany’s largest importer of natural gas and Europe’s largest buyer of Russian gas, is facing financial difficulties due to natural gas export restrictions imposed by Russia. The company has received only 40 percent of its contracted natural gas volumes from Russia since the beginning of June, forcing it to procure replacement volumes at significantly higher prices.
The situation has caused the company daily losses of up to 50 million euros from its natural gas business. According to Helsingin Sanomat.
Uniper’s shares have lost almost 75 percent of their value since the beginning of the year. Fortum owns 78 percent of Uniper’s shares.
Tuppurainen reminded that the difficulties stem from the serious disruption in the natural gas market caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the manipulation of the market by the Kremlin-controlled natural gas company Gazprom.
“This root cause of high gas prices is not going away in the near future, so this problem cannot be solved for the principal owner by any short-term capitalization solution,” he said. “Fortum has already spent a considerable amount to support Uniper. Eight billion euros is a very large amount compared to Finland’s gross national product.
The directors of Fortum and Uniper are currently discussing with the German government a support package that could be worth up to nine billion euros.
Aleksi Teivainen โ HT
Source: The Nordic Page