Wintershall Heralds Russian Milestone
Wintershall, the upstream subsidiary of German chemicals giant BASF, said August 23 that its 50%-50% joint venture with Lukoil recently reached a significant milestone.
Wolgodeminoil produced the ten-millionth ton of crude oil in early August.
The joint venture, based in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, produces oil and gas from 12 fields across an area covering 13,625 km2, according to Wintershall, and in 2017 produced 520,000 tons of crude oil and about 0.13 billion m3 of gas. Over the next five years, Wolgodeminoil plans to conduct 3D seismic surveys across an area 1,700 square kilometers in size, and drill 20 exploration wells.
Wolgodeminoil was founded in late 1992 and is the longest-operating upstream joint venture between a Russian and a western European partner. The German 50% stake originally belonged to Deminex until the latter was split up 20 years by its three owners, with Wintershall acquiring the Russian jv stake.
BASF and Russian-owned LetterOne in December 2017 said they plan to merge their respective Wintershall and DEA subsidiaries into 'Wintershall DEA' – to be initially 67%-owned by BASF – and said completion was expected during 2H2018; since late last year they have not indicated any change to the merger plan.
Wintershall is also a financing partner for Russian state-controlled Gazprom's controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. Gas industry expert Thierry Bros however wrote this week that it was highly probable that a future Wintershall-DEA, if still under BASF majority control, would exit the NS2 project under the pressure of threatened US sanctions - along with three other NS2 financing partners.
(Banner photo courtesy of Wintershall)