Czech government discussing CEZ restructuring option

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech government is in talks with majority state-owned CEZ about restructuring the utility, CEZ and the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday, after a previous government abandoned ideas to split up the company following an earlier round of talks.

The ruling coalition had been holding talks on the issue for several weeks as part of efforts to give the state more control over energy prices as utility bills soar, according to Seznam Zpravy website, which initially reported the discussions.

CEZ shares climbed around 3% on Wednesday to outpace the rest of Prague and have risen more than 70% in the past year.

CEZ said the talks were at an early stage and had been prompted by a range of issues affecting power supply, including the war in Ukraine, the shift to renewables and efforts to secure long-term, reliable and affordable power for customers.

"These all lead us again to think about an optimal internal structure in the future," a CEZ spokesman said, adding talks were still at the stage of discussing ideas "so nothing is possible to present".

In 2018, a previous government discussed splitting CEZ into separate groups for old energy assets such coal and nuclear plants and new assets like renewables. The aim at the time was to make it easier to finance new nuclear power plants.

"A restructuring of CEZ is one of the options we are thinking about," Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura said, according to Seznam Zpravy.

The Finance Ministry, which manages the state's 70% stake in CEZ, reiterated Stanjura's comments when asked by Reuters. It said the option was being analysed but that the ministry would not comment further.

(Reporting by Jason Hovet; editing by Edmund Blair)