German offshore raw material extraction
The German offshore raw material extraction is the exploration and production of oil and natural gas in the German territorial waters as well as the German exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the North Sea . The main actor is the RWE Dea group .
Areas
Mittelplate
In 2006 almost 60% of all German crude oil was produced on the Mittelplate . The annual production is around 1.4 million tons of crude oil. According to the operator RWE Dea, the reserves of the deposit are around 40 million tons. Mittelplate thus forms almost 65% of the national crude oil reserves. Mittelplate is a stationary "oil exploration and production platform". The crude oil extracted on the Mittelplate is brought to Brunsbüttel for further processing by tugs and barges , as well as by pipeline to the Hemmingstedt refinery near Heide . Lately, inclined drilling (vertical-horizontal drilling) has been carried out northwards to below the North Sea resort of Büsum .
Schwedeneck Lake
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The first German offshore drilling took place between 1984 and 2000 in the Schwedeneck-See field in the Bay of Kiel . A total of 3.5 million tons of oil were produced in it. In 2013, RWE Dea planned to resume production in the Schwedeneck-See.
Duckbill
In 1974, the first successful drilling for natural gas was carried out in Entenschnabel , about 300 km from the German North Sea coast . By 1988, the gas field A6 / B4 was examined more closely by three further boreholes . On 18 September 2000 a preparatory phase of 18 months after the scheduled delivery operation of three began sunk recorded holes. The gas is transported through the then existing NOGAT pipeline on the seabed from the production site to Den Helder in the Netherlands . Only then did the project become economical. The project is the first offshore project in the area of the German continental shelf of the North Sea, planned and implemented in close cooperation with Wintershall Noordzee BV in The Hague . The company drilled up to 4,500 meters into the sea floor.