Wintershall is a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF, which is based in Ludwigshafen, and specializes in energy. Wintershall is active in various regions of the world in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. In Europe the BASF subsidiary trades and sells natural gas. The company also markets storage capacities for oil and gas, transportation capacities for gas as well as optic fiber capacities.
Wintershall has been active in the exploration and production of oil and gas for more than 75 years, and with its headquarters in Kassel, it is now Germany’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas. In its exploration and production activities, Wintershall deliberately focuses on selected core regions where the company possesses a wealth of regional and technological expertise. These regions include Europe, North Africa, South America as well as Russia and the Caspian Sea region. In addition, these operations are complemented by the company’s growing exploration activities in the Arabian Gulf.
The company is actively pursuing a policy of ongoing investment in the development of new deposits and the expansion of existing fields. While doing so, Wintershall attaches the same importance to stringent environmental protection and work safety requirements as it does to its economic targets.
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 F16 – our largest platform |
In the Exploration and Production segment, in 2008 Wintershall managed to raise production of crude oil and natural gas by 16 percent above last year’s level, to 130 million barrels oil equivalent1. Although crude oil and condensate production declined year-on-year by eight percent to 7.7 million tons, natural gas production rose by 48 percent in 2008 to 11.6 billion cubic meters. 116 percent of the volumes produced in 2008 were replenished. The total reserve-to-production ratio increased further to 11 years (2007: 10 years). This is based on Wintershall’s share of production in 2008 and refers to the reserves at year end.
Production has grown considerably since 2000. Wintershall has reached the Exploration and Production target set in 2000 for 2010 two years earlier than expected: production was supposed to increase to 120 million barrels of oil equivalent by 2010. As such, a new and challenging target for oil and gas production has been set: the target for oil and gas production in 2010 is now over 140 million barrels oil equivalent.
In 2008, BASF subsidiary Wintershall and Russia’s OAO Gazprom officially launched natural gas production at the joint venture ZOA Achimgaz in Siberia. The German-Russian joint venture produces natural gas and condensate from a section of the Achimov Formation, from which the joint venture gets its name, in the Urengoy gas field. Just one year after production began, the first six gas and condensate wells planned are now in operation. In addition, the hydrofracturing work was successful – this technique increases the flow of gas underground into the deposit by fracturing the rock of the deposit. The development of the second joint natural gas production project, the natural gas field Yuzhno Russkoye, commissioned in 2007, is also proceeding extremely well and already reached the plateau production of 25 billion cubic meters(RSC) per year in the middle of 2009. All 142 production wells planned are already in operation.
Wintershall stepped up its activities in Norway significantly in 2008 and positioned itself as an active company in the E&P sector. Wintershall already discovered significant reserves off the coast of Norway with its first exploration well since the acquisition of Revus Energy ASA. The BASF subsidiary is now one of the largest license holders on the Norwegian continental shelf with 53 licenses – and it is the operator in about a third of these licenses.
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 Rehden natural gas storage facility |
The Natural Gas Trading segment of Wintershall Holding AG once again proved its capacity for growth with an impressive performance in 2008: sales of the three trading ventures (WINGAS, WIEE und WIEH) held jointly with OAO Gazprom increased by 48.6 billion kilowatt hours (+13 percent) to 417 (2007: 368.4) billion kilowatt hours. WINGAS was responsible for 298.42 (2007: 249.8) billion kilowatt hours of these sales. The German-Russian joint venture therefore not only performed much better than the market in general in 2008, it also achieved its best sales figure in the company’s history. In particular international sales and trading on the spot markets increased in the first six months of the year. The resulting growth in volumes sold was not, however, able to fully offset the decrease in sales in Germany triggered by the economic downturn. Yet in the first half year of 2009 WINGAS sales decreased by just 7.1 billion kilowatt hours (-4.6 percent).
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 Production of natural gas in Sibiria |
In 1990 Wintershall and Gazprom began marketing natural gas together. WINGAS supplies natural gas to public utilities, regional gas suppliers, industrial facilities and power plants in Germany and other European countries (the UK, Belgium, France, Austria, and the Czech Republic) via WINGAS TRANSPORT’s network of pipelines, which now extends to over 2,000 kilometers. The German-Russian partners have invested about 3 billion euros in the development of the gas pipeline system. It links the major gas reserves in Siberia to the growing markets in Western Europe. With its storage facility at Rehden in North Germany, which provides a working gas volume of over 4 billion cubic meters, WINGAS possesses about one fifth of the total storage capacity available in Germany. In addition to Western Europe’s largest gas storage facility in Rehden and the new natural gas storage facility in Haidach near Salzburg (Austria) commissioned in 2007, further capacities are planned for Saltfleetby in England and Jemgum near the Dutch-German border.
In order to further strengthen supply security and to meet the growing demand for natural gas imports in Germany and Europe in the long term, a consortium of companies is planning to build the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. Wintershall has a 20% stake in the project. The Nord Stream pipeline will run from the Russian town of Vyborg 1,200 kilometers through the Baltic Sea and come on land on the German Baltic Sea coast near Greifswald. Preparations are currently underway for the construction of the onshore connection of the Nord Stream pipeline to the German pipeline system: the OPAL, which will stretch over 480 kilometers from Greifswald to Olbernhau on the Czech border, and the NEL, will run south of Bremen from Greifswald to Achim.
Wintershall’s profit from operating activities improved by 813 million (+27 percent) to 3.844 billion euros. That is the best result in the company’s history. Hence, Wintershall is once again the segment with the strongest result in the BASF Group. Exploration and Production was responsible for 3.319 billion euros of this figure (2007: 2.486)3 and 525 million euros (2007: 545) were attributable to Natural Gas Trading.
Wintershall employs more than 2000 staff from over 30 countries.
1 This includes the shares of third parties which are attributable to Gazprom’s interest in a German subsidiary which holds the Libyan concessions 96 and 97. The volumes from the Achimgaz project on the other hand are not included here due to contractual and statutory provisions.
2 Including volumes sold to the BASF Group. Of the total 298.4 billion kilowatt hours, the BASF Group companies purchased about 13 percent of this quantity, inter alia, for the Ludwigshafen plant as well as for other plants in Germany and Belgium.
3 The results of 2008 include € 1,851 million (2007: € 1,302 million) from income taxes on oil production in North Africa that are non-compensable with German corporate income taxes. These taxes are reported as income taxes. Negotiations are currently being conducted with the Libyan state oil company on converting the existing concession agreements into “Exploration and Production Sharing Agreements” (EPSA).
