Power group Innogy, which owns Didcot Power Station, warned it expected to cut jobs at Northern Electric and Gas after it bought the business in a £1bn swap deal.
Innogy's executive chairman Ross Sayers said there would be job cuts in a bid to save up to £60m each year by the end of 2004.
The group hopes to merge Newcastle-based Northern's IT systems and billing operations with those of its own electricity and gas arm, npower.
It has already started to integrate the domestic supply arm of the Yorkshire Power group it bought in February.
The deal means Innogy now has seven million customers in the UK and holds 25 per cent of the domestic electricity market with a smaller eight per cent share in gas.
Innogy paid £275m for Northern Electric and Gas.
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