The Russian business contributed 19 percent to the company’s operating profit (Ebitda).
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf The escalation of the Ukraine crisis is putting the oil and gas group Wintershall Dea under massive pressure. At a press conference on Thursday to present the annual figures, the company refused to make any statements about the current situation. The head of the company, Mario Mehren, simply said: “Today is a sad day for Europe. It is not a day to discuss hypothetical questions and the unknown. ”We will comment in the coming weeks when the situation is clearer.
For Wintershall Dea, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday and the associated escalation between Russia and the West are explosive: The company is considered the most important German partner of the Russian state-owned company Gazprom. Both companies each hold 50 percent of the joint venture Achimgaz, which produces gas in Siberia.
But when the annual report was presented on Thursday, the company’s board of directors only dealt with the figures for the past financial year. The Russian business contributed 19 percent to the company’s operating profit (Ebitdax). The total was 3.8 billion euros, which corresponds to an increase of 133 percent compared to the previous year. The adjusted net profit even rose by 387 percent to 950 million euros.
The fact that the result is so strong has to do with the recent high energy prices, but also with the fact that Wintershall Dea had to post a sharp decline in adjusted net profit in the 2020 financial year given the low oil and gas prices at the time. The group no longer has such problems – but it is under massive pressure in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
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Just a few days ago, Wintershall-Dea boss Mehren had warned of Western economic sanctions against Russia. “Economic sanctions rarely help people, as the past has regularly shown. They are not in the interest of the people in Ukraine, not in Russia, in Germany or in Europe,” he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper”.
Wintershall affected by sanctions
Wintershall Dea is partly affected itself by sanctions against Russia. The company, like four other European groups, is involved in the financing of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. Now that the commissioning of the project is on hold, Wintershall is in doubt about repaying around 730 million euros.
The annual report states that if the pipeline is prevented, compensation will be paid to the project company. At the moment, no reliable scenario is conceivable in which there would be political intervention without compensation. Even if the certification process, which has not yet been completed, delays commissioning, Wintershall Dea expects that the contractual obligations towards the financial investors will be met.
Another connection to Russia is that Wintershall Dea is 27.3 percent owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman via the LetterOne (L1) holding. He had recently blocked a possible IPO by Wintershall. The majority shareholder BASF wants to sell its stake in Wintershall Dea through an IPO. But an IPO has already been postponed twice.
More: “The situation deeply worries us” – This is how the Ukraine crisis hit the gas company Uniper
