Centrica reassures markets

FTSE 100 energy and services firm Centrica (LON:CNA) has seen its share price rise by 2.14% to 94.58p (as of 14:55 BST) after it announced that trading had been broadly in line with expectations during the first four months of 2019 despite the impact of certain external factors. These include the UK tariff cap, warmer than expected weather, and falling gas prices.

CEO Iain Conn said: “Although operational performance has been largely in line with our plans, external factors have presented challenges for Centrica during the first four months of 2019, in the form of the default tariff cap, warm weather, and falling gas prices. We have also experienced extensions to nuclear outages. However, we continue to focus on those things we can control and as a result we expect to achieve our 2019 cash flow and net debt targets, while we are making further progress on cost efficiency delivery and on demonstrating margin capture capability. We intend to provide a strategic update regarding our portfolio and prospects at the time of our Interim Results in July“.