BASF's Wintershall subsidiary presented at its annual press conference in Kassel, Germany significantly improved results for 2017.
BASF's Wintershall subsidiary presented at its annual press conference in Kassel, Germany significantly improved results for 2017.
Wintershall saw its profits after taxes and minority interests reach €719 million nearly double what it made in 2016 which was from €362 million.
“Compared with 2016, we have significantly increased our economic performance and improved our profitibility. We are clearly on course for growth,” said CEO Mario Mehren at the company's Annual Press Conference in Kassel.
Wintershall announced that it intends to become active in Brazil in the exploration of oil and gas reserves. Furthermore, BASF's and LetterOne's intended merger of Wintershall with DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG will provide further momentum: “This is an exciting prospect because it offers additional perspectives for growth that suit Wintershall. We expect that the merger can be carried out in the second half of the year.”
In 2017, Germany's largest internationally active oil and gas producer increased its income from operations (EBIT) before special items by 53 percent (€276 million) to €793 million (2016: €517 million). This is primarily attributable to the increase in oil and gas prices as well as the higher earnings contribution from our share in the Yuzhno Russkoye natural gas field.
In the search for new oil and gas reservoirs, Wintershall completed a total of seven exploration and appraisal wells in 2017, of which three were successful. Our proven oil and gas reserves rose by 3 percent compared with the end of 2016 to 1,677 million barrels of oil equivalent (2016: 1,622 million boe). Wintershall replenished 133 percent of the volumes produced in 2017.
“We have increased our production by around 50 percent since 2011 alone, whereby we have not lived at the expense of the future,” said Mehren. This is because in the same period Wintershall also successfully increased its reserves by almost 50 percent.
Overall, Wintershall plans to invest around €3.5 billion in expanding its oil and gas activities by 2022. This is about one fifth (18 per cent) of the BASF Group's total investment for the period from 2018 to 2022.
Source: Pipeline ME
