Wingas

The Wingas Holding GmbH ( external appearance and internal notation WINGAS ), headquartered in Kassel is a leading German gas trading company. Wingas is a subsidiary of W & G Beteiligungs -GmbH & Co. KG (W & G ), a joint venture of BASF subsidiary Wintershall, Germany's largest oil and gas producer and Russia's Gazprom. Wintershall is currently still holds 50 percent plus one share of W & G, the Russian natural gas producer 50 percent minus one share.

In December 2013, the EU Commission approved the complete takeover of Wingas by the Russian company Gazprom. The final acquisition is expected to be completed by mid 2014.

Activities

Wingas was founded in 1993 by Wintershall and Gazprom for natural gas trading and distribution. Wingas trades and sells natural gas to public utilities, regional utilities, industrial plants and power stations in Germany and other European countries. As a European energy company Wingas is active in Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The gross turnover of the company was in 2012 at 11.3 billion euros, the number of employees at about 330. 's Market share in Germany in 2010 was at 20 percent.

In addition to the marketing of natural gas Wingas rented since 1996 free transmission capacities at national and international telecommunications companies. The fiber optic (FO ) cable have been laid next to the natural gas network of affiliate GASCADE.

Unbundling

According to the provisions of the third package of the EU, which has been implemented by the amendment of the Energy Industry Act into domestic law, the Wingas Group has been largely disentangled from 2010 with the spin-off of the transport network and storage activities and restructured. As part of this restructuring in 2012, the former Wingas GmbH & Co KG was converted to the W & G Beteiligungs -GmbH & Co. KG (W & G) and transfer the entire gas trading and sales business of the Group to the newly established subsidiary Wingas.

The W & G is thus since August parent company of the "new" Wingas and GASCADE that holds the transport network. The storage business is a subsidiary of Wingas, performed in a newly created subsidiary, Astora GmbH & Co. KG.

Gas transport

GASCADE (formerly Wingas Transport ) is responsible for non-discriminatory operation of the gas transmission network in February 2012 as the so-called Independent Transmission Operator (ITO). The investments in the construction of pipelines NEL (North German gas pipeline ) and OPAL (Ostsee- Pipeline Link line ) are held directly by W & G.

Gas storage

Astora has worked for the storage business as a direct subsidiary of Wingas since February 2012. In Rehden Astora has the largest underground natural gas storage facility in Western Europe - with a volume of over four billion cubic meters of working gas. This corresponds to the annual consumption of two million single-family homes, or approximately one-fifth of the available storage capacity in Germany for natural gas. When Rehden is a former natural gas reserves, was promoted at the time by Wintershall. Currently, additional natural gas storage produced in the UK ( Saltfleetby ) and Germany ( Jemgum ). In May 2007, the Haidach storage facility at Straßwalchen in Salzburg was taken with a storage capacity of up to 1.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Astora, the RAG (RAG ) and Gazprom Export in operation. By 2011 this only to the German gas grid -connected memory has been expanded to 2.4 billion cubic meters, from 2014 it should also be linked to the Austrian gas grid. Astora can hold up to 20 percent of its sales in stores.