Important contribution to supply security

Марта 20, 2015

As well as developing and producing natural gas, Wintershall also makes an important contribution to supply security in Western Europe by building and operating natural gas pipelines, with natural gas storage facilities, and with its trading activities with Gazprom.

With demand for natural gas in Europe rising, and Europe’s own production falling, natural gas will have to be imported in increasingly large volumes in future. Wintershall helps to secure Europe’s supply of natural gas with its stake in the Nord Stream Baltic Sea Pipeline as well as the connecting pipelines OPAL and NEL, amongst other things.

In the natural gas trading segment, the sales volume of the joint venture companies (WINGAS, WIEE and WIEH) was increased by 40 billion kilowatt hours to 561 billion kilowatt hours (2013: 521) due to increased trading on the European spot markets. Sales to third parties in natural gas trading rose by 360 million euros to 12.2 billion euros owing to the volume increases. The EBIT before special items was 383 million euros, 23 million euros below the previous year’s figure (2013: 406). A lower contribution from the storage business was partially compensated for by the higher income from the transport business and ongoing optimization measures on the procurement side of the trading business.

Given the difficult political environment, Wintershall and Gazprom agreed in December not to proceed the asset swap planned for the end of 2014. “We will nevertheless continue our successful joint ventures in western Europe and Russia, even if the political conditions are difficult,” Seele explains. Together the two companies are continuing to make a significant contribution to securing Europe's energy supply and are focusing on continuity.

The acquisition of Wintershall's shares in Verbundnetz Gas AG (VNG) by EWE Aktiengesellschaft was completed in October 2014 as planned.

“Our planning for the year 2015 is based on an average oil price between and per barrel and a U.S. dollar exchange rate of .20 per euro,” says Seele. “We expect gas prices to remain at 2014 levels. Because of the lower price of oil, we anticipate a slight decrease in sales and considerably reduced EBIT before special items in 2015.” Despite the difficult general conditions Wintershall will make significant contributions to the results of the BASF Group.