Wintershall Dea ends 2023 with a small loss — EnergyWatch

A loss of EUR 9m. This is the result for 2023 for the German oil and gas giant, which is about to shrink dramatically.

At the end of 2023, Wintershall Dea announced that it had reached an agreement with Harbour Energy to sell its activities in Norway, Germany, Denmark, Argentina, Mexico, Egypt and Libya. 

This also includes the CCS business in Europe.

As a result, Wintershall has reported large parts of its business as ”discontinued operations” in its 2023 financial statements. 

Here, revenue for the continuing business is EUR 3.2bn, while it is EUR 8.97bn if you include the ”discontinued operations”.

In comparison, revenue in 2022 totaled EUR 16.8bn.

On the bottom line, Wintershall Dea posted a loss of EUR 9m, as previously mentioned. This is a significant improvement from the deficit of EUR 4.85bn in 2022, which was also affected by losses from the company’s Russian operations. 

Wintershall’s EBITDAX result totals EUR 4.2bn, a drop of almost 30%.

This is largely due to the fact that the realized brent oil and TTF gas prices have fallen by 18% and 65% respectively compared to 2022. Therefore, it does not help much that production has increased by 1% to 323,000 daily barrels.

The adjusted profit is EUR 513m – a decrease of 45%.

”In a difficult year for Wintershall Dea our team delivered stable operational performance, and robust financial results despite macroeconomic headwinds,” says Mario Mehren, CEO of Wintershall Dea, in connection with the financial statements.

Continues until the deal is closed

The Harbour Energy deal comes at a price of around USD 11bn. However, Wintershall Dea’s headquarters and headquarters team are not part of the transaction. 

Therefore, Wintershall Dea expects a restructuring ”and ultimately the closure of the headquarters’ units in Kassel and Hamburg, that currently have around 850 employees.” 

According to the financial statements, Harbour Energy intends to hire some employees from its current headquarters into the combined company. 

”Until closing, Wintershall Dea continues to work as an independent company, producing energy and advancing carbon management and hydrogen projects. Safely and efficiently,” says the chief exec.

Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Kristoffer Grønbæk