British Gas owner expected to reveal record profits of £3bn

theguardian.com:

The owner of British Gas is poised to reveal record annual profits of more than £3bn just weeks after suspending the forced installation of prepayment meters due to concerns over its treatment of vulnerable customers.

Analysts expect Centrica, which owns Britain’s largest energy supplier, to post underlying profits of £3.3bn in 2022 on Thursday, up from £948m in 2021.

The earnings, aided by surging profits in its North Sea oil and gas division, are expected to surpass the company’s previous profit high of £2.7bn, recorded in 2012.

In the decade since, Centrica’s share price has tumbled as hundreds of thousands of British Gas customers fled to rivals, including a string of new players which subsequently went bust during the energy crisis. British Gas has since taken on some of those customers through the supplier of last resort process.

Centrica is likely to face criticism for reporting huge profits on the back of a surge in wholesale gas prices linked to the war in Ukraine, which has pushed up prices for consumers.

The company has also been in the spotlight over its treatment of vulnerable customers after it emerged that debt agents working for British Gas had ignored vulnerabilities to break into customers’ homes to fit prepayment meters to recover debts.

The company suspended the use of court warrants to install prepayment meters, and the government and energy regulator Ofgem later ordered all energy suppliers to pause the tactic.

City analysts at Bernstein said the environment in the squeezed commodities market was “supportive” of higher profits at Centrica, “albeit tempered by the windfall taxes on nuclear as well as oil and gas”.

Centrica has a 20% stake in Britain’s nuclear power stations, which are run by EDF and are