Wintershall

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 80 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 are Europe, North Africa, South America, Russia and the Caspian Sea region. In addition, these operations are complemented by the company's growing exploration activities in the Middle East. 

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.

In the Exploration and Production segment, Wintershall managed to maintain the substantial rises in production in recent years in 2010 with 133  million barrels of oil equivalent, an increase of 70 percent compared to the figure for 2000 of 80 million barrels of oil equivalent. Although crude oil and condensate production declined year-on-year by 14 percent to 5.8 (2009:6.8) million tons, natural gas production rose by 5 percent in 2010 to 14.3 (2009:13.6) billion cubic meters. The total reserve-to-production ratio  is around 10 years. This is based on Wintershall's share of production in 2010 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 in the technically difficult deposit of the Achimgaz joint venture, in which Wintershall has a 50 percent share, are producing successfully. In 2011 Wintershall and Gazprom signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop two additional blocks of the Achimov formation in the Urengoy field in western Siberia together. 

The second west Siberian production project, Yuzhno Russkoye, in which Wintershall has a 35 percent share of the field's commercial success via Severneftegazprom, has been producing at plateau - of 25 billion cubic meters (RSC) of natural gas per year - since the middle of 2009. 

Wintershall enjoyed considerable success in 2010 in expanding its activities in Norway and the Middle East, as well as with a research project which is unique worldwide: Wintershall aims to significantly enhance the oil recovered from deposits with an organic fungus. The company continued expanding its activities in Norway substantially. Wintershall has working interests in six of the twelve largest oil discoveries in Norway from the last five years. The BASF subsidiary is now one of the largest license holders on the Norwegian continental shelf with over 40 licenses - and it is the operator in half of these licenses. Norway is considered one of the most important suppliers for Europe, alongside Russia, because of its major oil and gas deposits and the good connections to the West European markets.

In the Natural Gas Trading, the largest German-Russian joint venture, WINGAS, managed to maintain its strong position on the German and European natural gas market in 2010 as well. With 317.9 (2009: 300.1) billion kilowatt hours (kWh) the company achieved a new sales record again. The overall sales of all three joint ventures operated with Gazprom (WINGAS, WIEH und WIEE) rose by a total of 6 percent compared to the previous year to 412.6 (2009: 387.7) billion kWh. 

Wintershall and Gazprom have been marketing natural gas together since 1990. 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 natural gas storage facility in Haidach near Salzburg (Austria), further capacities are being created, for example in 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 including Wintershall is building the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. The pipeline is scheduled to deliver the first gas to Europe from October 2011. The natural gas arriving in Lubmin on the Baltic Sea coast will continue its journey to customers in western and central Europe via the two connecting pipelines OPAL (Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungs-Leitung - Baltic Sea Pipeline Link) and from 2012 NEL (Nordeuropäische Erdgasleitung - North European Gas Pipeline). As well as Nord Stream the BASF subsidiary also intends to participate in the construction of the South Stream natural gas pipeline through the Black Sea. South Stream is designed to create a new transport path for Russian natural gas to south-east and southern Europe from 2015. This will give countries in south-east Europe a direct and reliable link to the gas reserves in Russia.

The total turnover of the group fell by 565 million euros to 10.791 (2009: 11.356) billion euros primarily because of the low gas price on the European market. The annual net income after third-party shares increased overall by 211 million to 923 (2009: 712) million euros. 

Wintershall employs more than 2000 staff from over 35 countries.