Britain's biggest energy supplier Centrica Thursday reported a 35 percent drop of adjusted operating profit in 2019 year-on-year, blaming the country's new price cap for the loss.
According to the firm's preliminary results for the year ending Dec. 31, 2019, the adjusted operating profit fell by 35 percent to 901 million pounds (about 1,176.7 million U.S. dollars) compared with 2018.
Meanwhile, the group's adjusted gross margin decreased by 9 percent to 3,852 million pounds (about 5,030.5 million dollars) in 2019. The adjusted revenue declined by 2 percent to 26.8 billion pounds (35 billion dollars).
Iain Conn, chief executive of Centrica, said: "2019 operating profit and earnings were materially impacted by a challenging environment, most significantly the implementation of the UK default tariff cap and falling natural gas prices."
The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Britain's energy regulator, introduced a price cap on default energy tariffs on Jan. 1, 2019, which would give price protection to around 11 million energy customers.
Speaking of 2020, Conn said the firm expects to "deliver earnings momentum relative to 2019 from our core customer divisions", adding that upstream earnings are likely to "be impacted by the lower commodity price environment."
As an international energy services company, Centrica also operates in countries including Ireland, Canada and the United States.
Editor:Cherie
