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, which has its headquarters in Kassel, has been active in the exploration and production of oil and gas for more than 75 years and 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.
 | |
 F16 – our largest platform |
In the Exploration and Production segment, Wintershall managed to follow up on its substantial rises in production in recent years with a four percent rise in oil and gas production in 2009, to 1361 million barrels of oil equivalent, an increase of 70 percent compared to the figure for 2000 of 80 million barrels of oil equivalent. Wintershall now aims to further increase the production of crude oil and natural gas to 140 million barrels of oil equivalent by 2010.
Although crude oil and condensate production declined year-on-year by 12 percent to 6.8 (2008:7.7) million tons, natural gas production rose by 18 percent in 2009 to 13.6 (2008:11.6) billion cubic meters. The total reserve-to-production ratio2 is around 10 years. This is based on Wintershall’s share of production in 2009 and refers to the reserves at year end.
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. All six pilot wells were successfully brought on stream in the technically difficult deposit of the Achimgaz joint venture, in which Wintershall has a 50 percent share. Just one year after commissioning, the German-Russian joint venture was able to produce its first billion cubic meters (RSC) of natural gas. In the second west Siberian production project, Yuzhno Russkoye, plateau production was reached much sooner than planned in the middle of 2009. Wintershall has a 35 percent share in the field’s commercial success via Severneftegazprom. All 142 production wells are in operation.
Wintershall stepped up its activities in Norway significantly in 2009. 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 50 licenses – and it is the operator in about a third of these licenses.
| |
 Rehden natural gas storage facility |
In the Natural Gas Trading segment of Wintershall, the largest German-Russian joint venture, WINGAS, managed to maintain its strong position on the German and European natural gas market in 2009 – despite the fall in demand for energy due to the generally weaker economic environment. WINGAS even managed to achieve a slight increase in sales to 300.1 (2008: 298.4) billion kilowatt hours – thereby matching the record performance in 2008. In 2009 the total sales of all three joint ventures with Gazprom (WINGAS, WIEH und WIEE) recorded just a slight fall of seven percent to 387.7 (2008: 417) billion kilowatt hours. The sales markets in Romania and Bulgaria in particular were badly affected by the financial and economic crisis.
| |
 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, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic) via WINGAS TRANSPORT’s network of pipelines, which now extends to over 2,000 kilometers. 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 being created at Saltfleetby in England and Jemgum near the Dutch-German border.
The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea is being built in order to strengthen supply security and to meet the growing demand for natural gas imports in Germany and Europe in the long term. The construction of the first onshore pipeline, the OPAL, connecting Nord Stream to the German pipeline system, already began in late summer 2009. The second connecting pipeline for Nord Stream, the NEL, which runs from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to Lower Saxony, is currently in the planning approval process.
Profit from operating activities (EBIT) fell by 1.56 billion euros (–40.5 percent) to 2.29 (2008: 3.84) billion euros. Of this figure 1.78 (2008: 3.32) billion euros3 were generated by the exploration and production segment (–46.3 percent). This fall was cushioned by the delayed alignment of selling prices to the oil price (the so-called “time-lag effect”) in the first half of 2009. The natural gas trading sector contributed 508 (2008: 525) million euros (–3.2 percent).
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 are not included here. The 50/50 Joint Venture Achimgaz produced 9.2 million BOE in 2009.
2 The volumes from the Achimgaz project are not included.
3 The results of 2009 include € 870 million (2008: € 1,851 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).
