Germany's largest crude oil and natural gas producer plans to stay on its growth course of recent years. "We have laid the foundations for future growth by strengthening our technological expertise, making promising new discoveries in the North Sea and expanding our partnership with the world's largest natural gas producer, Gazprom," Rainer Seele, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of Wintershall, said at the company's Annual Press Conference.

The BASF subsidiary just recently signed Memorandums of Understanding with Gazprom to acquire a share in the South Stream natural gas pipeline and to develop two additional blocks of the Achimov formation in the Urengoy field in Siberia together. Based on initial analyses it is presumed that the gas production from the two new blocks can reach over eight billion cubic meters of natural gas a year. This would enable Wintershall to raise its natural gas production in Russia significantly once again. Wintershall was successful in 2010 with the expansion of its activities in Norway and the Middle East as well as with a new research project that is unique worldwide: Wintershall intends to considerably increase the oil yield from reservoirs in future with an organic mushroom. Overall the company was able to increase annual net income in 2010 by 211 to 923 million euros compared to the previous year. Both segments, oil and gas exploration and production as well as natural gas trading, contributed to the positive result.

As Germany's largest crude oil and natural gas producer, Wintershall is active in Europe, North Africa, South America, Russia and the Caspian Sea region as well as the Middle East, "And we are in competition with emerging countries that have high growth rates and are developing enormous appetites for energy and raw materials," the Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors explained. "We are now facing an intensive race for raw materials, which also translates into a race to secure the future of our industry in Germany and Europe. Securing raw materials will become one of the key tasks of the future." Oil and gas are and will remain the most important fossil fuels and raw materials for industry. "Recent developments will increase competition for energy raw materials even more and the upheaval in the Arab World as well as the catastrophe in Japan will not be without consequences for the global energy balance of the future," Seele explained.

"But securing the energy supply in Germany and Europe does not come for free," the Wintershall CEO said: "We must be able to secure raw materials worldwide but also continue producing oil and gas from domestic reserves profitably. Major infrastructure projects must be accepted by the society. And we need a climate that is open to innovation and technological progress - with no taboos!" Seele warned: "Because innovative technologies have to be based in the future in Germany."

Securing raw materials worldwide Despite the current political instability in the region, Dr Seele said Wintershall was going to gradually build up operations in the Middle East. In 2010 the first well was sunk in the so-called Khuff formation in the western section of the exploration block 4N in Qatar. In May 2010 a Memorandum was signed with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in Abu Dhabi which paved the way for the long-term exploration and development of a deposit in the western region of the emirate for Wintershall. Wintershall's strategy here, just as in other core regions, focuses on a combination of innovative production techniques and the latest exploration technologies. "We are staying in the Middle East region and continuing to vigorously pursue our E&P projects," Seele underlined.

Wintershall is monitoring developments in Libya with great concern. Wintershall suspended and sealed off its production operations in the Libyan desert at the end of February 2011 for safety reasons. No oil has been produced there since. "It is difficult at the moment to gauge developments in Libya. We are monitoring the situation very carefully and are looking after our Libyan employees in every way we can," Dr. Seele said. The question of whether, when and how oil production can recommence in Libya was, however, still completely open, he added.

In South America Wintershall has shares in 15 fields in Argentina; and the tight-gas development of the field Aguada Pichana Central West in the Neuquén Basin continued. In Chile exploration activities in two blocks near our existing production at Tierra del Fuego also progressed.

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