The British oil and gas producer and energy supplier Centrica has unveiled its 2019 results, announcing a statutory loss attributable to shareholders of £1,023m (€1,232m) in 2019 compared to a profit of £183m (€220m) in 2018. The group faced a challenging environment in 2019, including low gas prices in the United Kingdom, the implementation of the UK default tariff cap and extensions to outages at the Hunterston B and Dungeness B nuclear power plants. Centrica had to recognise £1,103m (€1,328m) of net pre-tax exceptional charges due to impairments of Exploration & Production and nuclear assets, the decrease in commodity price forecasts and restructuring costs related to its cost efficiency programme.
In 2019, Centrica's total oil and gas production declined by 10% to 52.3 mboe (10% decrease in gas production to 40.1 mboe and 12% drop in oil production to 14.2 mboe). The average production costs increased by 6% to £15.2/boe, while the average price for gas sales fell by 13% (+7% for liquids sales), reducing the group's profitability. Centrica's nuclear power generation contracted by 14% to around 10.2 TWh. The group announced in July 2019 that it intended to exit oil and gas production and to withdraw from nuclear power generation, as Centrica is seeking to become an international energy services and solution providers.