Wintershall is continuing its growth course in northern Europe: in the current licensing round APA 2013 ("Awards in Predefined Areas"), the Norwegian Petroleum and Energy Ministry has awarded eight new exploration licenses to Germany’s largest internationally active oil and gas producer. Wintershall Norge will be the operator in five of these licenses. This means that Wintershall received second most operatorships out of the 50 competitors right after the majority state-owned energy company Statoil. The licenses awarded to the BASF subsidiary comprise four new licenses (three operated) in the North Sea, three licenses (one operated) in the Norwegian Sea and one operated license in the Barents Sea. License success secures head start into 2014.
“The Norwegian Ministry has granted us eight promising licenses – this proves once again the expert knowledge and professional preparation of our exploration team. While we are working in full speed on the Maria and Skarfjell developments, our success in the APA round secures us a strong and promising license portfolio for the future”, says Bernd Schrimpf, Managing Director of Wintershall Norge January 22nd, the Ministry awarded a total of 65 licenses to 48 companies as part of the 2013 licensing round. 29 of these companies received operatorships. In this year’s APA round more companies than ever before handed in their license application. Wintershall now holds more than 40 licenses in Norway, more than half of them as operator. This doesn’t include the new licenses yet, since the official awarding of the licenses will take place later this year. As such, the oil and gas company is one of the largest license-holders on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
Guy Oakes, Exploration Manager of Wintershall Norge, who led the work of preparing the application, adds: “Our APA application showed that we still strongly believe in the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Nevertheless we needed further acreage in order to maintain our high level of activity. With the outcome of the current licensing round, we will be able to fulfill this plan.” From the first APA round in 2003, the APA area has been expanded several times and for the APA 2013 comprised a total of 199,054 square kilometers, an increase of 860 square kilometers from APA 2012. Up until the deadline of September 11th 2013, the companies could apply for the offered acreage.
New Wintershall licenses APA 2013
North Sea: PL 678 BS (35%, operator), PL 734 (40%, operator), PL 743 S (50%, operator), PL 744 S (20%)
Norwegian Sea: PL 475 D (35%, operator), PL 590 B (30%), PL 752 (40%)
Barents Sea: PL 768 (30%, operator)
