- Arbitration aims to recover at damages due to undelivered gas quantities
- Gas replacement cost Uniper around €11.6 billion to date
- Uniper Management Board resolves maximum separation from Russian business unit Unipro
According to the company’s website news release on November 30, 2022, Uniper has initiated arbitration proceedings against Russia's Gazprom Export (GPE) before an international arbitral tribunal. This was reported by Uniper CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach at an event in Düsseldorf. In the proceedings which will take place in Stockholm, Uniper is claiming damages incurred by the company in connection with the gas volumes not delivered by GPE since June. Uniper has to procure replacement volumes at higher cost in order to meet its own delivery obligations to customers based on in the past agreed prices and volumes. This leads to the situation that Uniper has to bear the entire replacement costs. These gas replacement costs alone, currently amount to at least €11.6 billion and will continue to grow until the end of 2024.
Uniper CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach: "We are claiming recovery of our significant financial damages in these proceedings. It's about gas volumes that were contractually agreed with Gazprom but not delivered and for which we had to procure replacements at extremely high market prices and still have to do so. We incurred these costs, but they are not our responsibility. We are pursuing these legal proceedings with all due vigor: We owe this to our shareholders, our employees and the taxpayers."
Uniper also announced that it has decided to further distance itself as far as possible, legally and in terms of personnel, from its Russian business unit Unipro. Unipro was foreseen for sale since the summer of 2021, a transaction has been agreed with a local buyer but the political approval for the transaction is outstanding and uncertain. Unipro management has not been involved in the parent company's information processes for some time, and financial flows and IT systems have been separated. In a further step, the Uniper board yesterday launched a process to further separate the two companies as far as possible.
Maubach continued: "We took all the steps possible to divest Unipro. In September, we even signed a deal, but since then it is still subject to the Russian regulatory authorities with an uncertain outcome. With a divestment not being under our control, we have taken far-reaching steps to fully separate our business outside Russia from the Russian activities and the associated risks, even without a sale, as far as is possible under the current circumstances. We are doing this without rancor, with full consistency and in the knowledge that this is a hard break for Russian Unipro. "
About Uniper
Düsseldorf-based Uniper is an international energy company with activities in more than 40 countries. With around 7,000 employees, it makes an important contribution to security of supply in Europe. Uniper’s core businesses are power generation in Europe, global energy trading, and a broad gas portfolio. Uniper procures gas – including liquefied natural gas (LNG) – and other energy sources on global markets. The company owns and operates gas storage facilities with a capacity of more than 7 billion cubic meters. Uniper plans for its 22.5 GW of installed power-generating capacity in Europe to be carbon-neutral by 2035. The company already ranks among Europe’s largest operators of hydroelectric plants and intends to further expand solar and wind energy, which are essential for a more sustainable and autonomous future.
Uniper is a reliable partner for communities, municipal utilities, and industrial enterprises for planning and implementing innovative, lower-carbon solutions on their decarbonization journey. Uniper is a hydrogen pioneer, is active worldwide along the entire hydrogen value chain, and is conducting projects to make hydrogen a mainstay of the energy supply.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Uniper SE Management and other information currently available to Uniper. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. Uniper SE does not intend, and does not assume any liability whatsoever, to update these forward-looking statements or to modify them to conform with future events or developments.
