Gazprom and Wintershall sign basic agreement on asset swap

Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Kurt Bock, Chairman of the BASF Board of Executive Directors signed at the Gazprom headquarters today a basic agreement on asset swap. The legally binding document provides for major terms and conditions for the asset swap deal under the project for joint development of the Achimov deposits in the Urengoy oil, gas and condensate field. The final agreements are expected to be made in 2013.

According to the document, Wintershall may acquire 25 per cent plus one share in the new joint venture on developing blocks 4A and 5A in the Achimov deposits of the Urengoy field.

In addition, the Agreement provides for Gazprom to receive a 50 per cent stake in WINZ, which runs natural gas exploration and production projects in the North Sea, and increase its stakes in gas trading and storage companies of WINGAS Group to 100 per cent, as well as in WIEH and WIEE – to 100 per cent.

“Gazprom and BASF have confirmed their common aspiration to promote the strategic partnership in the international energy market. By increasing stakes in gas trading and storage companies we will continue our successful joint efforts on securing reliable gas supplies to Europe. The agreements reached in gas exploration and production projects expand the geographic reach of our mutual activities that started from production projects in Russia,” said Alexey Miller.

“The asset swap deal is consistent with our strategy to expand the extraction and production of crude oil and natural gas – through organic growth and targeted acquisitions. With this step, we are further developing our more than 20 year partnership: Gazprom will become more active in the natural gas trading and storage business and we will jointly expand the production at the source,” said Kurt Bock.