Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, has reported a decrease in its adjusted operating profit for the first half of 2024.
The company, which also owns Scottish Gas and Bord Gáis, announced that its adjusted operating profit for the first six months of the year was £1 billion, a sharp decline from £2.1 billion in the same period of 2023.
The decrease is attributed to a “normalisation of the market” following the extraordinary conditions of the previous two years.
Retail operations contributed £0.2 billion to the adjusted operating profit, a reduction from £1 billion in the previous year, due to improved performance in British Gas Services & Solutions and Bord Gáis Energy, countered by the absence of one-off cost recoveries from British Gas Energy.
Optimisation operations saw a drop in adjusted operating profit to £0.3 billion from £0.5 billion, influenced by lower commodity prices and reduced market volatility.
The infrastructure sector reported a profit of £0.5 billion, down from £0.7 billion, supported by Centrica’s hedging strategy but affected by lower seasonal gas price spreads impacting Centrica Energy Storage+.
Chris O’Shea, Group Chief Executive, said: “Our core businesses continued to deliver in line with our expectations in the first half of 2024, against the backdrop of more normalised market conditions.
“Against the medium-term profit objectives we set out last year, we are on track to deliver two years ahead of schedule for the majority of our businesses and we continue to ramp up our investment programme, including in innovative technologies that will support the UK and Ireland‘s net zero ambitions.”
