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A good six months for DELTA

DELTA's turnover grew by €21 million to more than €1 billion in the first half of 2011. The operational gross margin also increased by €10 million to €313 million. Corrected for the change in fair value of the trading portfolio, the operating result increased by €44 million up to €52 million.

"This stable result is largely due to our multi-utility company profile," says Peter Boersma, the CEO. "Because we don't depend exclusively on operating activities in the energy sector, we're able to achieve good figures. On top of that, we started reducing costs and making changes to the organisation a couple of years ago."

Energy
The first half of 2011 saw prices of the various commodities fluctuate, gas and electricity in particular. International developments such as shutting down the nuclear power plants in Germany and the commotion in the Arab world have contributed to this. During the first six months, DELTA also had to deal with a rather lengthy shutdown of the Sloe power plant for maintenance. On the consumer market, gas sales were down on the first half of last year because of the milder winter and warm spring.

Aside from that, developments in the consumer market are positive. The number of Internet customers is increasing (+3.3%) and so is the number of customers for digital telephony (+3.9%). The number of people watching digital TV rose by 9.2% in the first half of 2011.
In April and June, ZeelandNet was chosen as the best provider in the Netherlands by the Dutch Consumers' Association. In May, Delta won the Public's Prize as the most customer-oriented energy supplier in the Netherlands. The initiative for this vote, the Customer Centric DNA Awards, comes from BearingPoint Consulting and TNS NIPO.

Waste processing
Turnover in the waste processing segment was up. Utilisation of capacity at all the large processing systems was very good and a number of one-off decontamination orders ensured additional volume and turnover. The results were strong, particularly in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Prospects
It is expected that the current low energy prices will have a negative effect on the result for 2011. This will be partly offset by the ongoing efficiency programme. Forecasts are more favourable for waste processing, although strong competition and fluctuating market prices for energy and raw materials may affect the result. Disregarding changes in value of the trading portfolio, DELTA continues to expect that the operating results for 2011 will be in line with those of 2010.

Editor's note
For more information, please contact our spokesman Luppo Huizenga by telephone on +31(0)6-1056-6970.

 

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