CORRECTED - Crisis, competition hit E.ON Ruhrgas 9-mths sales

(In first paragraph changes sales to gas not power)

FRANKFURT, Nov 11 (Reuters) - German utility E.ON AG's Ruhrgas (EONGn.DE) unit posted a 15 percent year-on-year fall in gas sales in the first nine months of 2009 due to the recession and increasing competition.

The wholesale unit in E.ON's core region, which is the German gas market leader, saw sales drop to 428 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in Janaury through September, down from 503 billion a year earlier, the group's interim report showed on Wednesday.

"...Declining production in the foreign and German industries which E.ON Ruhrgas serves either directly or via sales to gas shippers and local utilities, have played a negative part," it said.

"One part of the sales decline is due to a noticeable increase of competition in the gas market," it added.

National regulators in mainland Europe's biggest gas market continue to press big suppliers to help facilitate better short term supply choices for consumers and independent traders.

Ruhrgas noted that third quarter 2009 sales alone had risen by five percent over comparable 2008 after the year-on-year sales drop in the first half of 2009 had amounted to 21 percent.

It also said that some delivery contracts had been moved internally to other European units and unfavourable spot gas trading opportunities had also led to reduced sales.

Ruhrgas sold 64 percent of its gas in the period to long-distance shippers, 12 percent directly to industry, and 24 percent abroad to destinations such as Denmark and Italy.