(RTTNews) – German chemical giant BASF’s subsidiary, Wintershall, is expanding its oil and gas production and reserves in the North Sea, under which it would acquire shares in the two producing fields Gjøa (5%) and Vega (24.5%), the development project Aasta Hansteen (24%), the Asterix discovery (19%), the Polarled pipeline project (13.2%), as well as equity in four exploration licenses in the vicinity of Aasta Hansteen from Norwegian company Statoil ASA. The shares in the assets include reserves and resources of around 170 million barrels of oil equivalent or boe.
Further, the companies agreed that Wintershall would become operator of the producing field Vega. The transaction would be executed with payment of the purchase price of $ 1.25 billion and would be financially effective retroactively to January 1, 2014. A further payment of up to $50 million would be made, provided the Aasta Hansteen field development is executed according to the current project plan. Statoil and Wintershall reached an agreement today in Stavanger. The transaction may close by the end of 2014. Wintershall would thereby raise its daily production in Norway from currently 40,000 boe to about 60,000 boe. Further, Wintershall and Statoil agreed that the firms would work together on the exploitation of the exploration potential in the Vøring Basin.
