With sales of Euro 242 million and a 14% share of group sales, MVV Energie‘s gas business is the third largest segment at the MVV Energie Group.

Gas Volume of the MVV Energie Group 1
In Mill. kWh	2002/2003		2001/2002		In %
Secondary distributors	2,387		3,556		-33
Key accounts	3,029		2,390		+27
Small businesses and households	2,874		2,465		+17
	8,290		8,411		-1
1 Without gas volume from value-added services

Sales Increase despite Difficult Market Climate

MVV Energie AG accounted for 63% of total gas sales and the participations Energieversorgung Offenbach AG (EVO), Stadtwerke Ingolstadt Beteiligungen GmbH (SWI), Stadtwerke Solingen GmbH (SWS) and Köthen Energie GmbH for 37%. After selling our shares in Gasversorgung Süddeutschland GmbH, we have now been concentrating our efforts in the gas market even more on our business with secondary distributors and end-consumers.

Compared to last year, we were able to raise our gas sales by 3% in spite of mounting competition in our business with bulk-rate customers and secondary distributors. Our participations in SWI and SWS, which were first consolidated for the whole year in 2002/03, contributed Euro 32 and 24 million, respectively, to our sales growth, compared to Euro 21 and 15 million, respectively, for only nine months last year. At Euro 25 million gas sales at EVO remained at last year’s level. Our participation Köthen Energie increased its sales by 9% to Euro 8 million. The overall rise in sales largely resulted from a hike in the gas tax of 0.20 Cent/kWh to 0.55 Cent/kWh as of January 1, 2003, which we have passed on to consumers since then. Without taking gas taxes of Euro 41 million into account (Euro 29 million last year), gas sales decreased by 2% compared to last year. The main reason for this was a drop in sales at MVV Energie AG of 7% to Euro 153 million.

Uneven Developments in Volume

Compared to last year, our volume in the gas segment (without contracting) went down 1% to Euro 8.3 billion kWh. This falloff mainly resulted from competition-related decreases in quantities of 33% in MVV Energie AG’s secondary-distributor business. This was offset by higher volume in our end-consumer business with key accounts (+27%) as well as with small businesses and households (+17%). Part of the growth in volume came from MVV Energie AG’s business with industrial customers. This came about because we succeeded in regaining a major, bulk-rate customer that we had lost to competition two years ago. Our participations EVO, SWI, SWS and Köthen Energie were able to increase their volume with key accounts as well as with small business and household customers. At SWI and SWS part of the growth in volume also resulted from their first-time, full-year consolidation.