The European Commission has approved Germany’s €34.5bn plan to nationalise the German energy group Uniper, which, due to the disruption of gas deliveries from Russia, underwent losses and faced bankruptcy. Uniper’s recapitalisation involves an immediate cash capital increase of €8bn, which will be subscribed at a price of €1.70 per share, as well as an authorised capital of up to €26.5bn, which Germany intends to pay in stages through to 2024.
Germany has committed to work out an exit strategy by the end of 2023, aiming to reduce its Uniper shareholding to not more than 25% plus one share by end-2028 at the latest. Until the end of 2026, Uniper cannot buy stakes in other companies unless essential to ensure its viability. To preserve competition, Uniper will divest parts of its business, including the 1 GW Datteln IV coal-fired plant in Germany and the 428 MW Gonyu gas-fired plant in Hungary. Uniper will also have to dispose of its 84% stake in Russia's Unipro, as well as its German district heating business, its North American power business, its stakes in the OPAL and BBL pipelines and its 18% stake in Latvijas Gaze. The group will also have to adjust its long-term gas contract portfolio, and to grant competitors access to its transport and storage capacities.
Simultaneously, the European Commission also approved the €6.3bn recapitalisation of the energy company Securing Energy for Europe (SEFE), previously known as Gazprom Germania, the subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom in Germany, of which Berlin took a 100% ownership in November 2022.
The nationalisation of Uniper, majority owned by Finland’s Fortum, was announced by Germany in September 2022, after several rescue packages were granted to the company as it suffered net losses of €40bn during the first nine months of 2022. Uniper owned and operated 31.6 GW of power plants at the end of 2021 (-2 GW compared to 2020), with 48% of gas, 20% of hard coal, 12% of hydro, 9% of other energy sources, 6% of lignite and 5% of nuclear. Most of the power plants are located in Germany (9.4 GW), where the company is the fourth largest power utility in terms of installed capacity, Russia (9 GW), the United Kingdom (6.4 GW) and Sweden (4.7 GW). Uniper is also the largest gas storage company in Germany with a storage capacity of 6.5 bcm.
Interested in Global Energy Research?
Enerdata's premium online information service provides up-to-date market reports on 110+ countries. The reports include valuable market data and analysis as well as a daily newsfeed, curated by our energy analysts, on the oil, gas, coal and power markets.
This user-friendly tool gives you the essentials about the domestic markets of your concern, including market structure, organisation, actors, projects and business perspectives.