Wintershall: “Russia remains central for us”

“Russia is our most important core region. And Russia will remain central for us,” the Wintershall CEO Mario Mehren says in an interview with the Gazprom Journal. The BASF subsidiary has been cooperating with the Russian energy corporation Gazprom for over 25 years. “Our joint projects are successful,” Mehren tells the Russian energy group’s magazine. The Gazprom Journal is issued bimonthly, has a circulation of more than ten thousand copies and is a renowned publication in the Russian energy business.

Mario Mehren stresses the importance of the Achimgaz joint venture, founded together with Gazprom, and highlights the significance of the Russian natural gas production for the supply security in Germany and Western Europe. Production at Achimgaz in 2015 had risen by almost 50% compared to the previous year. “We hope very much that going forward we can continue at a similar pace. We can supply a third of all households in Germany with the natural gas that our joint ventures produce in Russia annually,” Mehren underlines. This strong partnership is all the more important when you consider that domestic natural gas production continues to decline: “Germany depends on natural gas imports.”

In this context, Mehren points out the planned North Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Western Europe through the Baltic Sea – another major project that Wintershall will be realizing together with its partner Gazprom. “For Europe, pipelines are, and will remain, the backbone of the gas supply. We are in the fortunate situation that a large proportion of the world’s gas reserves are in pipeline distance – in Russia in particular. That is a geological fact,” the Wintershall CEO said. “Supply security for the future too can only be ensured in cooperation with Russia,” Mehren emphasizes. The construction of North Stream 2 would therefore make a valuable contribution to a secure energy supply at competitive prices.