GDF SUEZ has closed Wednesday its agreement to buy 5 natural gas underground storage facilities in Germany and a 19.7% stake in another one. The transaction announced 31 January 2011 covers the storage facilities held by BEB Speicher GmbH and by ExxonMobil Gasspeicher Deutschland GmbH.
This transaction covers underground gas storages in Uelsen, Harsefeld, Lesum, Reitbrook, Schmidhausen, as well as 19.7% stake in Breitbrunn-Eggstädt. These facilities include 4 depleted fields and 2 salt caverns. The respective share of working gas volume concerned is about 1.5 billion cu.m and 80% of storage capacities are already contracted until 2020.
These activities are taken over by Storengy, a subsidiary of GDF SUEZ spearheading the Group’s natural gas storage activities.
As per agreement closing GDF SUEZ has today a total storage capacity of 12.5 billion cu.m in Europe, of which more than 2 billion cu.m are offered to the German market. With this acquisition GDF SUEZ is now among the top 4 leaders in the German storage market with a 10% market share (vs. 2,5%). GDF SUEZ also becomes number 1 in Europe in terms of natural gas storage capacities sales and has now stronghold positions in three key markets : France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
[mappress]
Source: GDF SUEZ, September 1, 2011;