Octa+ is reluctantly saying goodbye to the Brussels energy market. In this region lie the roots of the family business, which evolved from a coal distributor to a player in domestic heating oil and filling stations to recently electricity and gas supplies.

“Too much is too much. The current prices and regulation in the Brussels-Capital Region leave us no other choice,” Etienne Rigo, CEO of Octa+ and one of the family shareholders of the company, told De Tijd.

Final invoice

The company has informed the Brussels network operator Sibel that it is surrendering its supplies and that it will no longer supply customers in Brussels with gas and electricity at the beginning of next year. The customers will receive a final invoice and whoever still has money to pay will receive it back. According to De Tijd, the 17,000 Brussels customers will run out of energy: switching customers to a replacement supplier is not being considered.

Active in Flanders and Wallonia

Rigo data that Octa+ remains active in Flanders and Wallonia. “We are still winning customers there,” says Rigo. It stops at risk to company only in Brussels. Octa+ fears that the stricter regulation in the capital for customers with payment difficulties could “endanger the survival of the company”.

(pg)