Hamburg – DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG has sold three underground natural gas storage facilities operating in southern Bavaria to NAFTA Bavaria GmbH. The buyer is a subsidiary of Slovak NAFTA a.s., a company of the Czech EPH Group. The transfer became effective as of January 1st, 2019.

A CMS team headed by lead partner Dr Jacob Siebert advised DEA on the consolidation of its gas storage business under the roof of DEA Speicher Holding in 2017 and the subsequent divesture to NAFTA in the course of an international auction process. CMS' lawyers focusing on mining law Dr Christiane Kappes and Dr Fritz von Hammerstein contributed to the transaction with respect to regulatory aspects.

DEA is focusing its business operations on exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. Within the scope of a strategic reorientation, DEA had spun off its gas storage business in 2017, pooled it in its subsidiary DEA Speicher Holding GmbH & Co. KG and now sold it to NAFTA. The marketing unit DEA Speicher GmbH has likewise been transferred to NAFTA which will market existing storage capacity in the future.

NAFTA will continue DEA’s activities in the natural gas storage business. Wolfersberg gas storage facility has been in operation since 1973, Inzenham-West since 1982 and the Breitbrunn/Eggstätt storage facility at lake Chiemsee since 1996.
CMS Germany

Dr Jacob Siebert, Lead Partner
Dr Christian von Lenthe, Partner
Dr Jan Schepke, Parter
Maximilian Pfaller, Associate
Markus Wrogemann, Associate, all Corporate/M&A
Dr Fritz von Hammerstein, Partner
Dr Christiane Kappes, Partner, both Regulatory/Mining law
Dr Friedrich von Burchard, Regulatory
Dr Heino Büsching, Partner
Dr Olaf Thießen, Counsel, both Tax
Christoff Soltau, Partner, Competition & EU
Dr Dorothée Janzen, Partner, Real Estate & Public
Dr Matthias Schlingmann, Partner, Dispute Resolution
Dr Daniel Ludwig, Partner, Labor, Employment & Pensions
Dr Thomas de la Motte, Partner, Banking & Finance