RWE to sell NET4GAS

Czech state-controlled power company ČEZ says it is not interested in the country’s natural gas pipeline company.

NET4GAS has reportedly beeen put up for sale by its owner RWE Transgas, the Czech unit of Germany energy company RWE, although its German parent company denies any final decision has been taken.

ČEZ finance director and deputy board chairman confirmed rumors that NET4GAS is on the market in reply to questioning following its third-quarter results.

“We know NET4GAS is for sale in the Czech Republic,” Novák said, when asked whether the state-controlled Czech power company might be interested. “We are not really interested in this type of business …We would probably not look at it,” he added.

Novák explained that ČEZ was not really interested in the pipeline business, that it was highly regulated, and that NET4GAS’ main revenue stream from the East-West shipment of natural gas from Russia through the Czech Republic would probably be undermined by new gas pipelines, such as the pipeline under the Baltic, the Nord Stream, which opened this week.

Hampered by the German government decision to exit nuclear power by 2022, the sale of NET4GAS is amongst the options that RWE is looking at as it seeks to shed assets with the overall aim of accumulating €11 billion from asset sales by the end of that year.