Wintershall CEO stresses importance of Norway

Mario Mehren, CEO of the German oil and gas company Wintershall has deemed Norway as an important part of the company’s future production goals.

Mehren held a presentation at the Norwegian Embassy Tuesday in Berlin during a visit by Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

He talked about the upcoming merger between Wintershall and DEA, announced in September, with both companies having substantial assets in Norway.

Mehren said: “It has become clear during the last few weeks that Wintershall and DEA will become the company Wintershall DEA within the next year. As Europe’s leading independent gas and oil producer, we will continue to expand our activities in Norway.”

“More competition is good for the Norwegian shelf. As Wintershall DEA, we will be one of the driving forces.”

According to Mehren, who will become the Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of the merged company, Wintershall DEA plans to increase its daily worldwide production from the current total of around 575,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to 800,000 barrels over the next three to five years. Around a quarter of the production shall then come from Norway.

More competition is good for the Norwegian shelf. As Wintershall DEA, we will be one of the driving forces.”.

“In particular our successful exploration activities are making an essential contribution to this. The recoverable reserves from our Nova field are expected to be around 80 million barrels of oil equivalent, while Dvalin (DEA) is estimated to be 115 million barrels. By way of comparison, the average discovery size in Norway has been around 44 million barrels in recent years”, explained Mehren.

Once they start production, mainly crude oil will be produced in the Nova field and mainly natural gas in the Dvalin field. “Norway offers a stable regulatory framework and is an ideal environment for gas and oil industry investments in the search for new discoveries. Of course, this greatly boosts our exploration activities”, explained Mehren.

Wintershall also has a stake in Equinor’s Aasta Hansteen field, which is expected to start production soon and will also contribute to Wintershall’s further growth.

“Europe’s energy supply is thus secured in the long term – thanks to gas and oil from our partner country Norway,” said Mehren.

“Europe’s energy supply is thus secured in the long term – thanks to gas and oil from our partner country Norway,” said Mehren. Wintershall Norge AS is one of the largest oil and gas producers in Norway with a daily production of around 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent. The company owns about 50 licenses on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, more than half of them as the operator. In 2017, the Maria field entered production as Wintershall’s first development on the continental shelf as the operator.

The next planned project is Nova (formerly Skarfjell). The company is also the operator of the Brage and Vega production fields. Wintershall Norge AS has around 500 employees and forms part of Wintershall Holding GmbH. Wintershall Holding GmbH, based in Kassel, Germany, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BASF in Ludwigshafen.