Wintershall has agreed with the Russian natural gas producer OAO Gazprom to take a 15 percent stake in the project company in charge of developing the offshore part of South Stream. The 940 kilometer pipelines are to run through the Black Sea and connect EU member states in Southeastern Europe directly with Russia. The agreements were signed today. Friday, September 16, 2011, by Alexei Miller, Chief Executive Officer of OAO Gazprom, Dr. Harald Schwager from BASF's Board of Executive Directors, and Dr. Rainer Seele, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of Wintershall, at the Investment Forum in Sochi in the presence of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The company South Stream Transport AG will develop, build and operate the offshore project section of South Stream through the Black Sea. Apart from Gazprom (50%) and Wintershall (15%), Italy's ENI (20%) and France's EdF (15%) have a stake in this company.

"Together with Gazprom and other European partners, we are already demonstrating with the Nord Stream Baltic Sea Pipeline how we can increase gas supply security in Europe. We are now working together to improve supply security in the southeastern EU member states, in which Gazprom and Wintershall have been successfully involved in gas trading for many years," explained Dr. Harald Schwager in Sochi.

"In the global race against Asian countries for raw materials, South Stream - like Nord Stream - will ensure access to energy resources which are vital to our economy. With its production in Siberia and a stake in the transport infrastructure, Wintershall is contributing directly to a secure European energy supply," emphasized Dr. Rainer Seele at the contract signing.

The objective of the South Stream project is to create a new means of transporting Russian natural gas to customers in Southeastern and Southern Europe as of 2015 at the earliest. It consists overall of three components: expansion of transport capacities in Russia to the Black Sea, construction of four parallel gas pipelines through the Black Sea with a planned total capacity of 63 billion cubic meters a year, and further construction of the pipeline onshore to Southern and Central Europe.  

The cooperation between Wintershall, Germany's largest crude oil and natural gas producer, with the world's largest natural gas producer Gazprom now ranges from exploration and production of natural gas in Western Siberia and construction of the Nord Stream pipeline to selling natural gas in Germany and Europe through the joint trading companies WIEH, WIEE and WINGAS. WIEE, which was established in 1993, supplies customers in Romania and Bulgaria with natural gas and also develops the infrastructure further in Southeastern European markets.