KASSEL, GERMANY, Mar. 23 -- Herbert Detharding, chief executive of Wintershall AG, Thursday reported the German oil and gas company was "on course" to meet ambitious 5-year growth targets, bolstered by income from operations in 2000 that more than doubled from 625 million euros in 1999 to 1.33 billion euros.
Detharding credited the "distinctly favorable" economic conditions in the sector in 2000 resulting from high oil and gas prices and a strong US dollar for what he described as "excellent" results.
"If the crude oil price averaged even $25/bbl this year, and the euro does not become too strong, we will likely be able to repeat these results again next year," said the chief executive, stressing that the company expected to see "dramatic growth" in the next 5 years.
"If all our E&P projects come to fruition in the coming years, we could double the size of the company," said Detharding, "but a more realistic expectation would be growth of 50% (by 2007)."
Wintershall's post-tax profits of 357 million euros in 2000 were down 363 million euros against figures from the year before due to the sale of its refining and marketing activities.
"Although the company's (profits after taxes) were 363 million euros less than the comparable level for the previous year, profits after taxes in 1999 were substantially influenced by extraordinary earnings resulting from the sale of parts of the company and participating interests," he added.
Head of E&P Reinier Zwitserloot, who joined Wintershall from ExxonMobil Corp.'s South American operations 5 months ago, said the company was budgeting to spend an average combined 600 million euros/year on exploration and development in 2002-07.
Last year the company sold its Canadian and UK assets, but expanded its E&P activities out of Germany and the Dutch North Sea into Russia, Libya, Qatar, Argentina, Dubai, Azerbaijan, and Romania.
Detharding underlined two "important" joint developments with Russian partners OAO Gazprom as spearheading its E&P drive. The first is Prirazlomnoye oil field in the Barents Sea, where reserves are "at least" 500 million bbl. The other is the Urengoi-Achimov gas field expansion project in Western Siberia, expected to produce 10 billion cu m/year of gas and 2.5 million tonnes/year of condensate.
Wintershall's production for 2000 was flat at 7.6 million tonnes, while gas output climbed by 8% to 3.9 billion cu m.
The company's combined oil and gas reserves, said Zwitserloot, are 1 billion boe, equal to 11 years production at 2000 levels.
Gas sales by WINGAS -- Wintershall's 65:35 gas joint venture with Gazprom -- climbed from 95 billion kw-hr in 1999 to 113 billion kw-hr, a 19% increase. Total volume of sales of Wintershall-affiliated companies WINGAS, WIEH, and WIEE totaled 222 billion kw-hr, 19 billion kw-hr higher than in the year before.
The WINGAS pipeline system totals more than 1,830 km and the Russo-German JV, through its storage facility at Rehden, owns "about a quarter of the total storage capacity installed in Germany," emphasized Burkhard Genge, WINGAS board spokesman.
"Total investments to date aimed at building up our natural gas trading business amount to about 2.7 billion euros," he said. "WINGAS will exploit the opportunities arising from the progressive liberalization of the gas market for the sustainable expansion of its market position."
