Wednesday 8 October 2014

Gazprom taking over Western Europe’s biggest gas store

Russian energy giant Gazprom is readying itself to take over the largest natural gas storage facility in Western Europe.

Yesterday its chief executive Alexei Miller met the boss of German chemical company BASF, Kurt Bock, to discuss an asset swap agreed in December.

The Russian business will get Wintershall’s gas store site, plus boost its stake in energy trading firms WINGAS, WIEH and WIEE to 100%.

In exchange Wintershall, which is owned by BASF, will get a 25.01% share in a project extracting oil, gas and condensate from the Urengoyskoye field.

Gazprom said the swap would “substantially strengthen” each firm’s positions “along the entire value chain from upstream to downstream”.

Yesterday Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller also said his firm could boost gas supplies to China by up to 100 billion cubic meters a year.