Wintershall Holding AG's Supervisory Board has appointed Dr. Rainer Seele (48) as the company's new Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors. Dr. Seele, a Doctor of Chemistry, will take over as Chairman of the 100-percent BASF subsidiary on October 1, 2009, and therefore succeeds Reinier Zwitserloot, who is retiring at the age of 60. Mr. Zwitserloot was the Wintershall Chairman for eight years.

Dr. Seele has been a member of the Board of Executive Directors since 2002, and is currently responsible for the Natural Gas Ressort. The Supervisory Board also decided that responsibility for this Ressort will pass to Dr. Gerhard König - the new member of the Wintershall Holding AG Board of Executive Directors - on 1 October 2009. The 43-year-old has also been appointed as the new WINGAS GmbH & Co. KG Management Spokesman. WINGAS is the Wintershall and Gazprom joint venture for natural gas trading activities in Europe.

Alongside Dr. Rainer Seele as Chairman, the Wintershall Holding AG Board of Executive Directors will also include Martin Bachmann (E&P - Exploration and Development Ressort), Dr. Ties Tiessen (E&P -Production Ressort), Dr. Gerhard König (Natural Gas Ressort) and Dr. Karsten Heuchert (Finances Ressort).

Dr. Seele was born in Bremerhaven in 1960. He studied chemistry and was awarded his doctorate at the University of Göttingen before joining BASF 22 years ago. Following various management positions in research and research planning, Dr. Seele joined Wintershall's Strategic Planning division in 1996. In 2000 he was appointed as WINGAS Managing Director, and in 2002 he joined Wintershall's Board of Executive Directors as Head of the Natural Gas Ressort.

Dr. Gerhard König was born in Stuttgart in 1966. He studied Business Administration and Economics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Wayne State University, Michigan, USA, following which he held a number of positions at Contigas from 1991 to 2001. Before he left the company he was Head of Energy Procurement and Sales. The business admin expert then went on to work for Thüga AG in Munich and was responsible for the company's activities in Italy. In October 2002 he changed to WINGAS in Kassel, where he took over as Head of Sales in Germany and Europe.

Tags: Wintershall