Wintershall Confirms Oil at Ravn-3 in Danish North Sea

Wintershall announced that the Ravn-3 (5504/5-2) appraisal well in License 5/06 in the westernmost part of the Danish part of North Sea confirmed the presence of oil. The well operated by Wintershall Noordzee B.V. was drilled as a slanted well and reached its total vertical depth at 4469 meters below mean sea level in layers of Triassic age. The well successfully proved hydrocarbon-bearing Heno sandstones of Upper Jurassic age. Oil was produced during a production test.

Ravn-3 is located approximately 1.5 km south of the Ravn-1 well which discovered oil in 1986. After drilling the Ravn-2 appraisal well in 1987 the previous licensee decided that the discovery was unattractive to develop further. The companies in License 5/06 will now evaluate the results from Ravn-3 to decide whether an economical production of oil can be established. The well was spudded September 15, 2009 with the jackup rig Noble George Sauvageau in a water depth of 48 metres. The well is now being plugged and suspended.

Current partners in License 5/06 are:

• Wintershall Noordzee B.V. 35 %
• Bayerngas Petroleum Danmark AS 30 %
• EWE Aktiengesellschaft 15 %
• Nordsøfonden 20 %

Wintershall has North Sea expertise going back 44 years

The North Sea is one of the traditional core regions of Wintershall. The wholly owned BASF subsidiary has been active there since 1965 and operates 25 oil and gas platforms in the Dutch and one in the German North Sea. "Around half of the natural gas consumed in Europe today still comes from the countries bordering the North Sea: Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Germany," Dr. Ties Tiessen, Member of the Board of Executive Directors of Wintershall Holding AG and responsible for production, explained.

Rijswijk, near The Hague, is home to the company-wide competence center for offshore technology. Here Wintershall Noordzee is working on developing its shallow-water expertise. The development of offshore expertise is generally gaining importance in the exploration and production of oil and gas, and the company applies this expertise to its activities in other regions of the world. In order to enhance the efficiency of its operations in the southern sector of the North Sea, Wintershall operates 19 of its 26 offshore platforms centrally from land -- via one of the most modern radio control systems in the world, which is located in Den Helder in the Netherlands. This technology makes it possible to develop smaller deposits profitably too, thus safeguarding the company's future production from the Netherlands' offshore reserves.

Moreover, Wintershall has laid the foundations for further growth in the North Sea with the acquisition of the Norwegian company Revus Energy ASA (now Wintershall Norge ASA) in December 2008. Wintershall Norge already struck crude oil and natural gas in the summer in its first operated exploration well, Grosbeak, in Norway and is now the fifth-largest license holder in Norway, with 53 licenses overall, including 19 as the operator.