Iberdrola, Spain's largest gas company, said Thursday it may dispose of its natural gas business and in particular its US natural gas business in a drive to reduce its net debt.
"We don't see the gas business as strategic," CEO Ignacio Sanchez Galan told analysts in Madrid. In particular, Galan said that the company's US gas operations could be sold "if a good offer is made."
The company, which is the world leader in installed wind capacity and Spain's largest utility, has half a million gas customers in the US, where it saw sales volume fall 9.1% in the first quarter to 12.3 TWh, according to company data.
In the UK, where Iberdrola operates under the Scottish Power brand, it has 2.2 million points of sale, with 700,000 points of sale in its domestic Spanish market.
Galan said the company was targeting debt reduction for the rest of 2012, to bring the figure below Eur30 billion ($39 billion). Besides the interest in selling the gas business, he said that other alternatives were being studied, without elaborating.
Iberdrola's worldwide gas business totaled 3.4 million clients at the end of the first quarter. Sales were down 17% to 36.3 TWh while the amount of gas stored rose 15% to 2.5 billion cubic meters, according to a company presentation.
The company reported Thursday a 0.8% increase in net profit in the first quarter of 2012 as it increased installed capacity 2.5% compared to the same period last year.
The Bilbao-based company ended the quarter with 46.3 GW of installed capacity, with a 9.4% growth in new installed wind capacity to 14.0 GW. Net profit was Eur1.0 billion in the quarter.
