Wintershall and DEA: A merger with ‘major’ aspirations

The Wintershall and DEA merger, the largest upstream deal in Europe for over a decade, will be heavily weighted to gas, putting it at the centre of a heated gas debate in Germany

Wintershall chief executive Mario Mehren likes to speak his mind, especially when it comes to the role of natural gas in Germany's energy transition, the vaunted Energiewende. At the company's annual results presentation earlier this year, he stressed the urgent need for Germany to switch from coal to natural gas in electricity generation. Since then, a government commission has been formed to deliberate the phase-out of coal-fired generation; it's expected to report before the end of the year. So, what outcome would Mehren like to see? And what would such an outcome mean for Wintershall? "Germany's energy transition—celebrated a few years ago as an international flagship project—has lost it