German utility RWE on Thursday reported a massive drop in net profit, with bottom-line earnings falling by 74 percent in the second quarter year on year to 457 million euros ($510 million) on heavy losses at its energy trading business.

Results were somewhat distorted, though, by a one-off effect last year through the sale of RWE's oil and gas-extracting subsidiary Dea.

Looking at the first six months of the year, electricity sales rose by 4 percent over the same period a year earlier, but the company logged a 7-percent decline in gas sales volumes.

Restructuring effort

RWE Group revenue sank to 23.9 billion euros from 24.8 billion euros in the first six months of 2015.

CEO Peter Terium confirmed the firm's full-year outlook, expecting an operating result of between 2.8 billion euros and 3.1 billion euros throughout 2016.

In response to the fallout of Germany's decision to phase out nuclear energy and push renewables, RWE is to separate its renewable energy generation, power grid and retail operations into a separate company (Innogy) and sell a 10-percent holding in the business through an IPO later this year.

RWE is based in the western German city of Essen and - as a group made up of various subsidiaries - supplies electricity and gas to roughly 30 million customers in Europe.

hg/jd/ (Reuters, dpa)