From Paris: Wintershall is looking to boost oil and gas production from its core areas including Russia, Norway and the UK while also expanding activities in Argentina, new company chairman Mario Mehren told the World Gas Conference in Paris.

The company is looking to hit production of 190mboe in 2018 and Mehren said the company will invest €4bn over the next four years to reach its targets.

He said’ ‘Wintershall is pursuing promising projects. These include the ongoing development of the Achimgaz project in Siberia, the Norwegian fields Edvard Grieg (32/4), Maria (32/4) and Aasta Hansteen (32/5), as well as the Vega Pleyade gas project off the Argentinean coast at Tierra del Fuego.”

Wintershall board member Martin Bachmann told SEN on the sidelines of the conference that Norway was a key area of focus for the company.

He said, ‘In the last five or six years in Norway we have grown from basically no equity production to now more than 60,000 b/d equity production with one major platform being operated at Brage and a major subsea development being operated at Vega which is producing very well.’

Wintershall has also just handed in the PDO for the Maria development, its first operated project in Norway, while it also plans to develop the Skarfjell (32/5) oil discovery.

‘We want more operatorships and we’re going to grow further through the projects we have in the pipeline. Norway is a major part of our strategy next to major places like Russia, the Southern North Sea and Argentina,’ Bachmann added.

Meanwhile, managing director of Wintershall’s Netherlands business unit, Robert Frimpong, said the Southern North Sea (SNS) is also a core area for Wintershall.

He said, ‘Denmark is a continuing part of our innovative growth story. We are currently in the middle of the development phase on the Ravn (31/15) project. We installed the platform last week. We still have to drill the first two wells as part of the phase one development which is progressing.

‘There are a number of challenges we have had to overcome with that set of wells being drilled with the Ensco 121 but we hope to have production by year end.’

The field is being developed with a minimum facilities platform with dry well heads.

He said exploration was also continuing across the SNS, ‘We’re exploring across the area and we’re currently drilling the Sillimanite well with the Ensco 121.’

Development options for the more than 30mmbbls Rembrandt oil discovery in the Dutch sector, where appraisal work is continuing, are also being considered.

Frimpong told SEN, ‘We’ve just completed the 17-13 well on that structure and we will now go through the analysis of that data in order to put together the concept we want to use to develop the field. All options are open for Rembrandt.’

The International Maritime Organisation has recently approved a slight change to shipping lanes in the area which gives Wintershall much easier access to the reservoir.

Frimpong added, ‘In the UK we have the Wingate field which is produced back to Dutch infrastructure. That is a key part of our plans and the A5 well will be drilled there this year. It is about making sure production is run at plateau.’