RWE claws back customers in Britain, back at end-2015 levels

FRANKFURT, Aug 11 (Reuters) - RWE (LSE: 0FUZ.L - news) has won more than 200,000 customers in Britain in July alone, bringing to a halt a massive exodus of gas and electricity customers in the country, its chief executive told reporters on Thursday.

CEO Peter Terium said customer numbers in Britain were back at the levels seen at end-2015, when RWE had about 5.2 million clients in the country, after falling to less than 5 million at the end of June this year.

RWE finance chief Bernhard Guenther also said that gas procurement risks from Russian supplier Gazprom for the coming years had been eliminated after the company reached agreement on terms for long-term supply with the Russian partner in June.

The deal had been reached not in arbitration but in direct talks, which boded well for the future bilateral relationship, he said.

Terium said that with the link of gas to oil prices effectively broken through the strength of liquid spot gas trading hubs inside Europe, RWE was confident to be able to source gas and stay politically neutral in controversies around the dependency on Russia's political risks. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz and Vera Eckert; Editing by Maria Sheahan)