Wintershall Dea strengthens commitment to high activity level in Norway

• Extension of daily production up to 200,000 boe/d
• Long-term commitment with continued exploration
• NOR-GE: large-scale CCS project connecting Germany and Norway

Wintershall Dea, Europe’s leading independent gas and oil company, is intensifying its activities in Norway and further strengthening the German-Norwegian energy partnership. “Norway is at the heart of our activities: of our E&P business today, and of our growing carbon management and hydrogen business tomorrow”, said Mario Mehren, Chief Executive Officer of Wintershall Dea, at the Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) conference in Stavanger today.

Norway has played a vital role for Europe’s and Germany’s energy supply in the past and is becoming even more important now. In the current time of urgent need, Norway reliably delivers much-needed energy to the EU and is the most-trusted energy partner to Europe. Wintershall Dea is contributing by adding significant production volumes in 2022. In July, the company successfully started production from its own-operated Nova field in the Norwegian North Sea. In addition to the Nova oil field, the development projects Dvalin and Njord are expected to come on stream by the end of this year.

“We are on track to reach our target of a daily production in Norway of up to 200,000 boe/d by the end of this year, the majority of which will be gas”, said Chief Operating Officer Dawn Summers. “Securing Europe’s reliable, low-carbon energy supply is our top priority right now, and Norway is key for this”, she added.

WELL-FILLED PROJECT PIPELINE

Wintershall Dea is committed to efficient and sustainable production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in the long term and working hard to keep the project pipeline filled. The company is pursuing a successful strategy of exploring for and developing fields near existing infrastructure. This enables their potential development as subsea tiebacks to existing fields, increasing efficiency, and lowering carbon intensity. The PDO for the own-operated Dvalin North field is planned for later this year. The gas field was the largest discovery on the Shelf in 2021 and will be developed as a tie-back to the Dvalin field.

Wintershall Dea has had four successful nearfield exploration wells this year, including the Hamlet, Ofelia, Newt and Storjo discoveries. “The world will continue to need gas: as a partner to renewables and for the production of low-carbon hydrogen. Nowhere in the world is production as safe, clean, and efficient as in Norway. We are proud to be part of this as one of the country’s leading subsea operators, now and in the future”, said Chief Technology Officer Hugo Dijkgraaf.

MOVING INTO THE CARBON MANAGEMENT AND HYDROGEN BUSINESS

For Europe to reach its climate goals, the establishment of a common CCS and hydrogen market is absolutely vital. Wintershall Dea is ideally positioned for this: “We have the subsurface knowledge, the depleted reservoirs, and the infrastructure for those technologies. We are part of the solution!”, Mario Mehren emphasized. Norway will be a core country in Wintershall Dea’s carbon management portfolio.

Earlier today, Wintershall Dea and Equinor announced that they have entered a strategic partnership to assess and pursue the development of an extensive Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) value chain, NOR-GE, that connects continental European CO₂ emitters to offshore storage sites in Norway. After a period of transport by ship, the partnership intends to build a 900 kilometres long open access pipeline connecting the German North Sea coast with storage sites in Norway. The estimated transportation capacity would be 20 to 40 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2037. Moreover, Wintershall Dea applied for its first CO₂ storage licence in Norway earlier this year.

Wintershall Dea and Equinor are an obvious match to develop a CCS value chain that connects Germany, the largest CO₂ emitter in Europe, and Norway, holding Europe’s largest CO₂ storage potential: From steel to chemical industries, all players are in urgent need of solutions for safe and large-scale underground CO₂ storage to abate unavoidable emissions from industrial processes. Equinor has been transporting and storing CO₂ emissions safely for over two decades in the Norwegian Sleipner and Snøhvit fields and is part of many projects, including the Norwegian CCS project Northern Lights. Wintershall Dea, is among the most active CCS players in Norway and other North Sea countries. The company has gained valuable expertise in the Greensand Project in the Danish North Sea and in addition is a partner in Equinor’s Snøhvit CCS project.

The company also has ambitious plans for the production of blue hydrogen.  It is maturing the BlueHyNow hydrogen project in Wilhelmshaven, which is set to produce 5.6TWh per year, using natural gas from Norway. The CO₂ generated during production is planned to be captured and then shipped to Norway and Denmark for safe and permanent storage in deep geological rock layers under the seabed. BlueHyNow is part of the planned EnergyHub in Wilhelmshaven.