EDF Group sees sales slump in Q1

French state-owned energy giant EDF saw its first quarter sales of gas and power slump 4.2% compared to the same time last year, in large part due to milder than average weather conditions across Europe.

As part of its quarterly financial information the Group said its sales were lower at €21.2 billion due to mild weather which reduced electricity sales in France, gas sales across Europe and trading activities more generally.

The UK helped boost revenue through steady B2B sales which the company attributed to “higher realised wholesale market prices”, the company said. B2B contracts are more likely to have a price fixed well ahead of the delivery, which would have been higher than the low prevailing market prices in Q1 due to the mild weather.

While total revenue from the French market was down 5.4% year-on-year to €12.181 billion, UK revenue grew 7% from Q1 2013 to €2.922 billion.

Other growth areas for the group came from the Italian market which saw growth of 3.1% to €3.574 billion due to growth in electricity volumes sold on wholesale markets and to final customers. EDF added that optimization of the generation fleet also helped to boost revenue despite the decline in power prices.

The milder than average weather led to a decrease in the amount of French output from fossil-fired plants with output falling by 4 TWh in the first quarter of 2014 to 2.2 TWh. French nuclear output also saw a decline of 1 TWh – just less than 1% — to 114.9 TWh.

In the UK, nuclear output saw a small decline of 0.8 TWh due to a higher number of refuelling outages and unplanned outages compared to the historically low level seen in the first quarter of 2013.

The group said Q1 saw a strengthening of its financial structure through the issuing of two 100-year bonds in both dollars and sterling which is says will significantly lengthen its average debt maturity.

EDF confirmed its 2014 financial goal for organic growth of at least 3% before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.