In North America, we continue to make good progress, despite the impact of the low commodity price environment on our upstream operations, and are beginning to see the positive impact of the Wildcat Hills, Clockwork and Gateway acquisitions. In Texas, churn remains at historically low levels, our prepaid product is having a positive impact on customer numbers, we now have a consolidated billing platform and our operating costs are much reduced. In Ontario, the introduction of the Energy Consumer Protection Act has made it substantially more difficult to acquire and retain customers and as expected our customer base has fallen. However our US North East customer base increased organically as market restructuring continues and including the impact of the Gateway acquisition we now have 800,000 customer accounts in this important growth region. Overall, North American operating profit was up 25%, with continued growth in Direct Energy Business and improved financial performance in upstream and wholesale. The business is well placed to continue to grow, building on our existing platform through a combination of organic growth and acquisition.
