Weather and competition as key factors affecting gas turnover
Despite cooler weather conditions, the gas turnover of the MVV Energie Group dropped year-on-year by 4% to 8.6 billion kWh. This was chiefly due to substantially reduced volumes in the secondary distribution business. Following the liberalisation of the gas market, there has been a sharp increase in competition for secondary distribution companies, as well as for major customers favourably located in terms of the gas supply. This is especially the case following the construction of direct pipelines. The secondary distribution business only accounted for 7% of total gas turnover in the year under report (previous year: 20%). Our companies supplied six gas supply companies in their secondary distribution business in the year under report; in the previous year they had still supplied nine such companies.
Volume growth, mainly due to weather conditions, in our end customer business (+10%), enabled us to make up for part of the supply volumes lost in the secondary distribution business. The end customer business accounted for 83% of total natural gas turnover in the year under report (previous year: 73%). The more marked volume growth reported for private and business customers than for industrial and commercial customers was due in part to the greater share of heating gas dependent on weather conditions among such customers and in part to a competition-related downturn in the industrial customer business.
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