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Novy Urengoy, Siberia: Gas and condensate treatment plant by Achimgaz, a joint venture between Gazprom and Wintershall Dea
Photo: Justin Jin for Wintershall / DPA
Wintershall Dea intends to withdraw completely from Russia.
"Continuing our business in Russia is not sustainable," said Wintershall Dea boss Mario Mehren in a statement.
The war destroyed cooperation between Russia and Europe.
In addition, the Russian government has restricted the activities of Western companies in the country.
"The joint ventures were de facto economically expropriated," said Mehren.
Wintershall Dea referred to Russian regulations from the end of December.
These retrospectively reduced the prices at which the joint ventures can sell the hydrocarbons they produce to the Russian company Gazprom.
In the future, Wintershall Dea no longer wants to show the key figures of its Russian joint ventures in the consolidated financial statements.
Excluded are changes in the fair value of financial assets, it said.
At the beginning of November, SPIEGEL and ZDF reported how a Wintershall Dea joint venture supplied gas condensate to Gazprom.
The Russian state-owned company supplies jet fuel to precisely those bases whose pilots are held responsible for alleged war crimes in the war against Ukraine.
For the parent company BASF, depreciation on Wintershall Dea added up to 5.4 billion euros in the fourth quarter alone.
The group also made value adjustments on the company's European gas transport business and completely wrote off its stake in the pipeline company Nord Stream AG.
This led to a loss of billions at BASF in 2022.
Wintershall Dea was formed in 2019 from the merger of BASF subsidiary Wintershall and rival Dea.
BASF still holds 72.7 percent of the joint venture, the rest is held by the former Dea owner LetterOne.
Because of the war in Ukraine, Wintershall Dea recently continued to distance itself from its business in Russia and announced that it was examining a legal separation.
The company is involved in three production projects at the Yuzhno Russkoye natural gas field and the Achimov formation of the Urengoy field in Siberia.
The share of the Russian business in the total production was recently 50 percent.
mgo/dpa/Reuters
