Centrica expects to spend less than its initial target of £1.05 billion to upgrade or buy assets in 2015.

That’s mainly due to a cut in investments for exploration and production of oil, with its spending forecast to be less than £800 million.

It said its full-year earnings are in line with expectations despite a second round of retail price cuts in British Gas Residential and issues in British Gas Business.

This year’s adjusted operating cashflow is set to exceed £2 billion compared with £2.7 billion in 2014.

The utility faces tighter regulation due to the competition investigation which could impose a limit on the most expensive energy tariffs.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently announced it was extending the timetable for the investigation into the UK energy market by six months.

Centrica Chief Executive Iain Conn, said: “I am pleased with our progress since we announced our strategy in July.

“[This year] has been a difficult year and against challenging external factors Centrica is establishing a solid base from which to deliver for our customers and shareholders.

“We are seeing underlying performance improvement against a softening commodity market and have concrete plans for executing our strategy.”

Centrica recently made an investment worth £63 million to upgrade a 1.2GW gas-fired power plant in North East Lincolnshire.