Company wins first exploration block in Chile

Kassel / Buenos Aires. Wintershall is expanding its activities in South America: The wholly owned BASF subsidiary has for the first time been awarded an exploration license in Chile. Wintershall will begin exploration work in the Magellan Basin in the South of Chile this year together with South American company GeoPark Holdings Limited and the Methanex Corporation. Wintershall and GeoPark each have a 42 percent stake in the consortium and Methanex holds the remaining 16 percent. The consortium was awarded the license for the Otway Block, which has a surface area of 6,000 square kilometers, in the first international bidding round for explora-tion concessions by the Chilean government. At least 30 million US dollars will be invested in the exploration of this block.

“With the commencement of exploration activities in Chile we are expand-ing our portfolio in South America, which is one of our core regions”, Dr. Ties Tiessen, Member of the Board of Executive Directors of Wintershall Holding AG responsible for Production, explained. “We already have the first geological and geophysical data for the block. We will carefully ana-lyze this data and conduct 2D and 3D seismic surveys to identify drilling projects”, Dr Tiessen said. Methanex, which is based in Vancouver, pro-duces, supplies and markets methanol and is an important client of Winter-shall and GeoPark. GeoPark is a South American oil and gas producer with concessions in Argentina and Chile and the only private-sector oil and gas producer in Chile.

Active in South America for 30 years

Wintershall is very familiar with the geological structures in the South of the continent. The company has been producing since 1989 together with the French company Total and Pan American Energy (PAE) off the coast of Tierra del Fuego – an area which is among the most promising hydrocar-bon reserves in Argentina – from the Hydra, Argo, Antares and Kaus oil and gas fields and since 2005 from the Carina and Aries natural gas fields. The latter is the largest Argentinean offshore gas production project to date. “The Otway Block in Chile is located near our existing production facilities at Tierra del Fuego. We can contribute our extensive experience in exploration to the block in Chile”, the Wintershall Board Member said. Wintershall’s activities in Argentina go back to 1978 and it is one of the country’s biggest producers of natural gas via its Argentinean subsidiary, Wintershall Energía S.A. In April 2008 Wintershall received the final award for two exploration licenses by the Chubut Province Government in the Cañadón Asfalto Basin in Central Argentina, which were part of the inter-national bidding round E-01/92 “Plan Argentina”.