DONG Energy sees the UK as its “number two territory” following its buy-out of Shell’s commercial gas supply business which was completed in May.

The Danish parent company of the newly titled DONG Energy Sales UK wants to replicate the success of its integrated energy business on home territory in Britain, said Lars Clausen, DONG’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Distribution.

In an interview Mr Clausen told ELN why DONG would want to pick up a business Shell was getting rid of: “What makes sense for Shell does not necessarily make sense to everybody else… They’ve said for years, ‘profitable upstream, profitable downstream’. Now they’re saying, ‘We want much more profitable upstream and much more profitable downstream or we get out of there’.

“The UK clearly is going to be our number two territory in terms of trying to build a profitable business model, building upstream assets and then trying to hedge the total bet on the value chain.”

The Danish firm which is three-quarters owned by the state is planning to launch a new dual fuel tariff for its customers, all of which stayed on board after the deal.

He said firms needed to change their focus from the cost of energy by volume to the cost of their bill: “The gas business has been around the attitude, ‘I want a lower kilowatt hour price or therm price, or I want this that and the other’… What we truly want to do is we’re going to help the customer lower their energy bill… We’re also going to help our customers in actually being able to buy both gas and electricity in one place while we help them get lower energy consumption.”