Wintershall to Sell Selected Assets on Norwegian Continental Shelf

Wintershall, a 100% BASF subsidiary, is further optimizing its portfolio by divesting assets in the four non-operated fields Knarr (20%), Veslefrikk (4.5%), Ivar Aasen (6.4615%) and Yme (10%) on the Norwegian continental shelf to Tellus Petroleum AS, a recently acquired 100% subsidiary of Sequa Petroleum N.V. At the same time, Wintershall is reducing its share in the own-operated Maria Development by 15% to 35% and has gained Tellus Petroleum as a further partner to develop this field, for which the plan for development and operation (PDO) was recently submitted. The package Wintershall is selling to Tellus Petroleum also includes equity stakes in seven exploration licenses in the vicinity of the Knarr, Maria and Ivar Aasen fields and in the Barents Sea, as well as ownership interests in the Utsira High Gas Pipeline (3.8769%), the Edvard Grieg Oil Pipeline (2.5846%) and the Knarr Gas Pipeline (20%).

The agreed purchase price for the transaction is US$602 million, of which US$40 million is subject to the Maria Field development being approved by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. In addition, Tellus Petroleum will make a further payment of up to US$100 million depending on the development of the oil price in the period from 2016 to 2019. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2015 – subject to approval by the relevant authorities – and will be financially retroactive to January 1, 2015.

“We continue our strategy to grow at the source,” said Martin Bachmann, member of the Board of Executive Directors of Wintershall and responsible for exploration and production in Europe: “With this transaction we are selling shares in non-operated fields at a competitive price and reducing our investment obligations.”

The sale does not affect Wintershall’s production targets. The company aims to continue raising the production of oil and gas to 190 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) by 2018.

Wintershall will continue to be the operator for the Maria discovery. “We are happy that with Tellus Petroleum another competent partner is joining the consortium to develop Maria and take it to production,” said Bachmann. Tellus Petroleum is an oil and gas company established in 2012 and based in Oslo. Its aim is to acquire a portfolio of interests in small and medium sized producing fields and discoveries on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Wintershall on course for growth in Norway

In recent years, Wintershall has expanded its daily production in Norway to approximately 60,000 boe per day. Wintershall is already one of the largest license holders in Norway with more than 50 licenses, and operates more than half of these. A key element of this successful growth is the partnership with the Norwegian company Statoil. In 2014, Wintershall took over the operatorship of the Brage production platform in the Norwegian North Sea from Statoil. As part of another transaction with Statoil, Wintershall took over the operatorship of the Vega Field in 2015.