E.ON Ruhrgas

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E.ON Ruhrgas AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1926
resolution 2013
Seat Essen , Germany

E.ON Ruhrgas headquarters in Essen-Rüttenscheid

Ruhrgas AG , founded in 1926, was the largest long-distance gas and natural gas company in Germany. The company, based in Essen was a wholly owned since March 2003 subsidiary of E.ON out -Konzerns under the name of E.ON Ruhrgas. Under the leadership of E.ON, the extensive gas-related industrial holdings and the gas network of Ruhrgas were sold by 2012. The gas trading business of E.ON Ruhrgas was merged with E.ON Global Commodities SE, based in Düsseldorf , effective May 2, 2013 .

Group structure

E.ON Ruhrgas was most recently the lead company of the E.ON Group unit Global Gas . The Global Gas unit in the E.ON Group is responsible for gas procurement, including its own gas production, as well as for project and product development in the areas of storage, transport, LNG and technical plant support.

The business activities of E.ON Ruhrgas were again divided into seven strategic business areas. The integrated portfolio management should ensure coordinated interaction between individual areas of responsibility. The Gas Technology & Energy Systems Competence Center bundled the technical expertise to support all activities along the value chain. E.ON Ruhrgas Exploration & Production explored and produced natural gas and crude oil in the so-called upstream area. Long-term supply contracts were taken care of in the LTC area . In the liquefied natural gas ( LNG ) business, the aim was to secure long-term growth opportunities in the global gas business. The national and international storage business was coordinated by E.ON Gas Storage. The transport capacities in the German transmission network were marketed by the newly established Group company Open Grid Europe , which was sold as an independent GmbH by the E.ON Group to an international consortium of buyers in 2012. The strategic business field Infrastructure Investments oversees existing international management systems and investments; it also actively supported new pipeline projects and joint ventures.

Key figures

In the 2010 financial year, 695.4 billion kWh of gas were sold and revenues of 20,896 million euros were achieved. The (adjusted) EBITDA was 2,031 million euros and the (adjusted) EBIT was 1,471 million euros. The figures show the importance that E.ON Ruhrgas had for the group. The pipeline network covered 12,000 km, which is now owned by Open Grid Europe. The working gas capacity of our own and rented gas storage facilities was 10.5 million cubic meters, including seven million cubic meters in Germany alone.

history

Until 2002

Former logos of Ruhrgas AG and E.ON Ruhrgas

Ruhrgas AG was founded in 1926 as a joint venture of the Ruhrgebietszechen to take over the distribution of the gas produced in the coking plants . At the beginning, this was an initiative by Albert Vögler , General Director of Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG and Alfred Pott , General Director of the mining branch of the Stinnes Group, who developed the idea of ​​a large-scale gas supply. In 1928 the 300 km long pipeline network of RWE AG was taken over and the "Aktiengesellschaft für Kohlenverwertung" (AGKV) was renamed Ruhrgas AG. By the end of the decade, contracts for the gas supply of the cities of Cologne , Düsseldorf , Hanover and Saarbrücken were concluded. In 1930 total sales were 0.3 billion cubic meters, 3.8 billion kWh. The pipeline network covered 857 km. Ruhrgas employed 385 people and in 1930 had a turnover of 13 million Reichsmarks .

By 1936, the long-distance gas network had grown to 1,128 km, with which two billion cubic meters of coke oven gas were distributed from 32 coking plants. The Opel plants in Rüsselsheim were won as an important industrial customer . In 1939, at the request of the Reich Ministry of Economics, Ruhrgas AG took on the task of integrating the natural gas deposits discovered in Bad Bentheim ( Grafschaft Bentheim district ) into the existing long-distance gas network. Due to the war, a 75 km long natural gas pipeline to the chemical works in Hüls could not be completed until 1944 .

In 1945, due to the destruction caused by the war, only 3 of the 51 coking plants were still able to deliver. But the destruction was overcome surprisingly quickly, so that by the end of 1945 the gas network was 90 percent operational again. In 1948, Ruhrgas and Thyssengas jointly exported coke oven gas to the Netherlands .

By 1965 the pipeline network had grown to 3,402 km and total sales were 3.3 billion cubic meters, 36.6 billion kWh, 10 percent of which came from natural gas. In 1965, 1,667 people were employed, who achieved a turnover of 430 million DM.

In 1970 Ruhrgas AG signed the first supply contract with its Soviet partner Sojuzgas . From this developed Germany's largest pipeline and trading company for natural gas with a quasi-monopoly position, which grew even further with the conclusion of the German-Soviet treaties in 1973. In this deal, which provided for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Germany, Mannesmann AG, financed by Deutsche Bank , supplied the large pipes that were needed to build the pipeline. In return, Sojuzgas supplied Ruhrgas with natural gas. From the proceeds fixed over decades up to the year 2000, the Soviet side repaid the loan at Deutsche Bank. With the dominant groups owned by Bergemann GmbH, the monopoly-like position in long-distance gas technology and gas trading in the Federal Republic and the financial and energy-political interdependencies in which Ruhrgas AG was involved, the company was one of the important players in the so-called until the 1990s Germany AG .

In 1977, Ruhrgas AG began delivering natural gas to Switzerland in cooperation with Swissgas .

In 1980 the long-distance gas network was 7,507 km and total sales amounted to 38.2 billion cubic meters, 424.6 billion kWh, of which 95 percent came from natural gas. In 1980 Ruhrgas AG employed 2,938 people and achieved sales of 8.798 billion DM.

In 1983 Ruhrgas AG signed a contract with the Soviet Sojuzgasexport and the GDR combine " Verbundnetz Energie " for the supply of 650 million cubic meters of natural gas annually for West Berlin from 1985 onwards.

In addition to the USSR, Ruhrgas opened up other sources of supply in the Netherlands, Germany, since September 1977 in Norway , since 1984 in Denmark and since 1998 in Great Britain . The Troll project in Norway attracted particular attention because it was supposed to double the proportion of Norwegian natural gas from the North Sea between 1996 and 2005.

In 1994 Ruhrgas AG owned two holding companies and a number of project companies that dealt with natural gas transport. The majority of the energy industry participations were combined in the Ruhrgas Energiebeteiligungs-Aktiengesellschaft (RGE). The downstream involvement of Ruhrgas AG under the umbrella of RGE consisted in 1998 of investments in 23 domestic and foreign energy supply companies. The industrial investments were by now in Ruhrgas Industries GmbH renamed Ruhrgas industry-Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH out the four business had: gas measurement and control, industrial furnace, pipeline engineering and building technology. At the end of 1998, around 9,100 people were employed in the entire Ruhrgas Group.

In 1998, Ruhrgas had a long-distance gas network of 10,361 km with 26 compressor stations and 12 underground storage facilities and total sales amounted to 50.9 billion cubic meters, 585.7 billion kWh and was at that time the dominant, monopoly-like gas network operator in Germany. In 1989 the company employed 2,681 people and achieved sales of 12.824 billion DM, which had grown to 13.8 billion DM by 1994 and to 14.4 billion euros by 2004, while the number of employees decreased to 2500 in the same period.

Before the takeover by E.ON in 2002, the following shareholders (according to voting rights) last held a stake in Ruhrgas (as of 1998):

Ruhrgas as a subsidiary of E.ON

Former headquarters of E.ON Ruhrgas in Essen-Huttrop after conversion to the Ruhr tower

With a ministerial permit from the then Minister of Economics Werner Müller , E.ON , which had also emerged from a merger of VEBA and VIAG , was able to take over the Ruhrgas gas company in Essen in spring 2002 after the Federal Cartel Office had initially prohibited the merger. The Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (OLG) had initially stopped the merger; This was based on urgent applications from the energy traders Ampere and Trianel. The OLG expressed doubts about the legality of the special permit issued by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which approved the merger despite a ban by the Federal Cartel Office. The takeover then dragged on until March 2003. The purchase price for E.ON was around eight billion euros, with Ruhrgas showing an annual net profit of around two billion euros at the time. On July 1, 2004, the new owner renamed his gas division to E.ON Ruhrgas . The group is building a new corporate headquarters near Essen's Grugahalle .

In June 2005 E.ON Ruhrgas acquired 51 percent of the Romanian gas supplier DistriGaz Nord and renamed it on April 1, 2006 to E.ON Gaz România. On September 8, 2005, the contract for the construction of the Nord Stream Pipeline (formerly North European Gas Pipeline, NEGP) was signed by the Russian Gazprom and the German groups E.ON Ruhrgas and BASF in the presence of Gerhard Schröder and Vladimir Putin . In 2006 the Elster Group was the last company in the former Ruhrgas Industries division to be sold.

In 2008 the pipeline network covers 11,552 km and total sales amounted to 687 billion kWh. In 2008 E.ON Ruhrgas generated 27.422 billion euros.

In 2009 E.ON acquired 25 percent less one share in the Yuzhno-Russkoye natural gas field via the operating company OAO Severneftegazprom (SNGP) . Other shareholders are Gazprom (50% plus 2 shares) and Wintershall (25% less one share). E.ON Ruhrgas thus has access to one of the largest natural gas fields in the world with reserves of over 600 million cubic meters of natural gas. The transport of natural gas from this field to Central Europe should take place from 2012 via the Nord Stream pipeline, which is currently under construction .

In March 2009 the E.ON Group confirmed its intention to sell the subsidiary Thüga , which had belonged to E.ON Ruhrgas since December 2004 via the subsidiary E.ON Ruhrgas Thüga Holding. The purchase agreement between E.ON and the municipal buyer consortium Integra / KOM9 was signed on October 23, 2009. The Thüga holdings in Gasag (36.85 percent), HEAG Südhessische Energie (40 percent), Stadtwerke Duisburg (20 percent) and Stadtwerke Karlsruhe (10 percent) were transferred to E.ON Ruhrgas in return transfer. All four holdings were to be sold. The 40% stake in HEAG Südhessische Energie was also sold to the HEAG holding company in 2010 . In July 2010 E.ON Ruhrgas took over 15% of the shares in the Trans Adriatic Pipeline from the previously equal shareholders EGL and Statoil .

In October 2010, E.ON Ruhrgas moved into the new headquarters on the site of the former Gruga Stadium , and the location was relocated from Essen-Huttrop to Essen-Rüttenscheid .

Fine by the EU Commission for sharing markets

On July 8, 2009, the EU Commission fined GDF Suez and E.ON / E.ON Ruhrgas each of 553 million euros . As part of the planning for the construction of the MEGAL pipeline , additional agreements were made in 1975 on the division of gas markets in France and Germany. The companies are accused of having continued to practice these market agreements in an inadmissible manner, although these, originally legal competition agreements, violated EU law after the opening of the European gas markets since August 2000. The fine was paid on time in October 2009.

Dissolution of E.ON Ruhrgas AG

On September 1, 2010, on the basis of the EU's third energy liberalization package, the gas transport unit and gas storage operation were transferred to E.ON Gastransport and renamed Open Grid Europe . The gas transport system combined in Open Grid Europe was sold to a consortium of infrastructure funds in July 2012 with operations and staff for 3.2 billion euros , so that E.ON Ruhrgas only carried out the gas trading business with around 500 employees.

With effect from May 2, 2013, E.ON Ruhrgas was merged with E.ON Global Commodities SE based in Düsseldorf . E.ON Global Commodities SE was transferred to the Uniper Group in 2015 .

swell

  • Highlights. The first 75 years. Publication by Ruhrgas AG, 2001.

Web links

Commons : E.ON Ruhrgas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Handelsblatt: Eon goes through all instances for Ruhrgas , July 18, 2002
  2. ^ Steffen Florschütz, Bochum University: The takeover of Ruhrgas by the E.ON Group, June 19, 2006
  3. ↑ finanzen.net: E.ON signs investment agreement for Yushno Russkoje gas field , September 9, 2010
  4. ↑ Thüga AG press release ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from October 23, 2009  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thuega.de
  5. ↑ finanzen.net: E.ON and HEAG agree on the sale of the HSE stake , September 9, 2010

Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 38 ″  N , 7 ° 2 ′ 1 ″  E