Centrica the owner of British Gas has warned that a £70m hit over the energy price and unusually warm weather will impact first half results.
The energy provider was hit with a “challenging” first quarter as UK natural gas prices have dropped, which is likely to reflect on interim performance and place “further pressure” on the full year outlook.
Centrica has been further hit as they have lost another 234,000 customers’ during the first four months of 2019.
Holding their annual general meeting on Monday the company said, they have been impacted by Ofgem’s cap on the standard variable tariff (SVTs) over the first quarter costing Centrica £70m.
However, gross revenues were up by 54% during the first four months and has kept their full year outlook unchanged for operating cash flow and debt.
The group is on track for £250m over the full year and are to axe 2,000 job this year. Centrica has made savings of £58m to the end of April.
Iain Conn, group chief executive of Centrica said, “Although operational performance has been largely in line with our plans, external factors have presented challenges for Centrica during the first four months of 2019, in the form of the default tariff cap, warm weather, and falling gas prices.
“We have also experienced extensions to nuclear outages.
“However, we continue to focus on those things we can control and as a result we expect to achieve our 2019 cash flow and net debt targets, while we are making further progress on cost efficiency delivery and on demonstrating margin capture capability.”
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