Wintershall Awarded Three New Licenses in North Sea

The Norwegian Petroleum and Energy Ministry has awarded Wintershall, Germany's largest oil and gas producer, three new licenses in the current licensing round APA 2012. Wintershall will serve as the operator of all three licenses.

"We have invested a great deal in expanding our activities in Norway in the last few years – the result is our own exploration discoveries as well as the recent asset swap with Statoil, in which Wintershall has agreed to acquire shares in three producing fields," said Martin Bachmann, the member of the Wintershall Board of Executive Directors, in a statement.

The company now holds 43 licenses in Norway, with 24 of them being operated by Wintershall, making the oil and gas company one of the largest license-holders on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

"The Norwegian Petroleum and Energy Ministry has assigned us three interesting licenses," commented Bernd Schrimpf, Managing Director of Wintershall Norge AS. "We have set ourselves ambitious targets for 2013. Our strong license portfolio will hopefully give us even more exploration success."

Wintershall currently has several developments in the pipeline, including Maria, Knarr and Edvard Grieg. All of which are scheduled to come online in the near future.

The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy assigned 51 licenses in total to 40 companies as part of the 2012 licensing round. Overall, 47 companies participated in the bidding process, which is now complete. The agency said that more companies took part in the APA 2012 licensing round than in previous years.

With more than 10 years of journalism experience, Robin Dupre specializes in the offshore sector of the oil and gas industry. Email Robin at rdupre@rigzone.com.

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