Natural Gas Trading

audited
  • Sales decline by 17% to €10,189 million as contribution from trading and storage activities ceases in fourth quarter
  • Earnings rise significantly through contribution from trading business

In the Natural Gas Trading business sector, sales to third parties decreased by 17% million to €10,189 million. This was due to the asset swap completed with Gazprom on September 30, 2015, through which the contributions from trading and storage activities were discontinued in the fourth quarter. In the first three quarters of 2015, these activities had contributed around €10.1 billion to sales. In the same period, 497 billion kilowatt hours in volumes were generated, which was 88 billion kilowatt hours more than in the same period of the previous year. As a consequence of the transaction, sales volumes decreased by 64 billion kilowatt hours compared with the full 2014 business year. WINGAS provided 3% of its volumes to BASF Group companies outside of the Oil & Gas segment.

Income from operations before special items considerably exceeded the level of the prior year. Lower contributions from both the storage and transport businesses were more than offset by higher earnings from the trading business.