Wintershall plans to expand Mideast production

Oil and gas major Wintershall plans to expand its Middle East production after it announced record profit in 2013.

“Our growth strategy focuses on expanding our oil and gas production in our core regions Europe, Russia, North Africa, South America and the Middle East. We are good at turning our plans into results and will continue to expand Wintershall, already Germany’s leading oil and gas producer, internationally,” said Rainer Seele, Chairman of Wintershall.

“We are on course and want to continue growing while adding value,” Seele said.

The company increased net income by 48 percent to 1.8 billion euros, thus crossing the billion euros mark for the third time in a row. Sales of the BASF subsidiary rose by 16 percent to 14.8 billion euros. At 132 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), oil and gas production remained at the previous year’s high level despite the production stop in Libya. In 2014, the company anticipates a slight increase in income from operations before special items.

“The good results in 2013 form part of a continuing successful decade in which we have increased oil and gas production by four percent a year on average. That is more than twice the industry average,” Seele said. In 2015 the company plans to further extend oil and gas production, to more than 160 million boe.

Germany’s largest crude oil and natural gas company is also active in South America, North Africa and increasingly in the Middle East region as well as Europe and Russia.

In 2013, Wintershall continued its cooperation with Adnoc, the national oil company of Abu Dhabi, in the Shuwaihat sour gas and condensate project.
Together with the Austrian oil and gas company OMV and Adnoc, Wintershall, which is the operator, is preparing the first appraisal. The project takes an important step to establishing a greater presence in the Middle East region. Wintershall will also work together with Mubadala Petroleum from Abu Dhabi on potential projects in the Mena region.

Off the coast of Qatar Wintershall is involved in the exploration of Block 4N in the Khuff formation, where natural gas was proven in 2013. The commercial and technical development of this new reservoir, Al Radeef, is still being examined.

Commenting on outlook, Seele said: “We expect the oil price in 2014 to be at approximately the same level as the previous year. We are anticipating a yearly average for the oil price of 110 US dollars and an exchange rate of 1.30 US dollars to the euro. We expect sales considerably below the 2013 level as a result of the divestiture of the gas trading and storage business planned for the middle of 2014."