Acquisition

Centrica PLC
14 March 2002

14 March 2002

Luminus grows customer base in Belgium

Centrica plc has today announced that its Belgian joint venture Luminus, has
reached agreement to acquire the electricity customers of four Belgian municipal
utilities. The 24,000 customers, who are currently supplied by the towns of
Izegem, Essen, Vorselaar and by Antwerp Harbour will transfer to Luminus in
stages as the Flemish electricity markets open by 1 July 2003, the scheduled
start date for residential market opening.

The acquisition, for a total consideration of 7.6m Euros (c£4.7million) in cash
includes residential, commercial and industrial customers. This will give
Luminus a combined customer base of nearly 800,000 customer accounts at market
opening.

Simon Lewis, Centrica's Managing Director, Europe, said: 'This is part of our
strategy to build a significant customer base in Belgium and we now have a good
platform to expand our market share throughout Benelux.'


Enquiries:

Centrica Media Relations          01753 494085
Centrica Investor Relations       01753 494900

Notes:

 1. In June 2001, Centrica announced its purchase of a 50 per cent share in
    energy supply business Luminus N.V., established with a consortium of
    Flemish municipal utilities led by Interelectra and WVEM. Further details
    can be obtained from the news section of the Centrica website,
    www.centrica.com

 2. The Belgian energy market is opening in stages. The last two stages of
    electricity deregulation in Flanders are the opening of the small and medium
    enterprise market in January 2003 and the residential market in July 2003.

                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
                ESESD