CAPITAL: BERLIN
MONETARY UNIT: DEUTSCHE MARK
REFINING CAPACITY: 2,259,000 B/CD
OIL PRODUCTION: 60,800 B/D
OIL RESERVES: 379 MILLION BBL
GAS RESERVES: 11.5 TCF
Late in 2000, five German fuel wholesalers filed a lawsuit against "ecology taxes" imposed by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government on fossil fuels.
The taxes, introduced on a range of carbon-based fuels and due to rise in stages until to 2003, were a key demand of Schroeder's coalition partners, the Green Party.
The Federation of German Wholesalers and Exporters said the taxes, introduced in 1999, discriminated against the wholesale sector because it did not receive the substantial exemptions offered to industrial companies deemed intensive users of fuels, such as the chemicals sector.
After the European Union complained that the exemptions represented a state subsidy, the government imposed a 20% tax on all fuel oil users. The tax proceeds were used to help fund the German pension system.
In early 2000, industry groups representing gas suppliers and large consumers agreed to the outline of a pact allowing third party access to the country's natural-gas pipelines.
Four German industry groups signed the pact, which allowed deregulation to proceed in August 2000.
ExxonMobil Corp. sold its 25% share of German gas transmission, distribution, and storage company Thyssengas to RWE Energie AG.
RWE Energie AG already had 50% of Thyssengas. Royal Dutch/Shell Group held the rest.
Thyssengas supplied industrial and power customers. It had a 7% share of the German gas market.
RWE later bought rival VEW AG for $3.8 billion, creating Germany's second-largest gas company after Ruhrgas AG.
To satisfy government concerns about competition, RWE and VEW agreed to give up stakes in the gas companies Gasag AG and Erdgas Schwaben.
Refining
In March 2000, Royal Dutch/Shell Group's 170,000 b/d-Godorf refinery in Cologne was damaged by fire in the 110,000-b/d distillation unit.
Shell estimated the loss at more than $4.8 million.
Celanese Chemicals, a business of Germany's Celanese AG, closed its acetyl units in Knapsack.
The units included a combination facility with capacity of 70,000 tonnes/year of acetic acid, 110,000 tonnes of acetic anhydride, and 170,000 tonnes of acetaldehyde.
Ruhr Oel GmbH awarded a contract for a clean-fuels project at one of Germany's largest oil refineries to Fluor Daniel, the engineering and construction unit of Fluor Corp.
The 246,000-b/d refinery was at Gelsen-kirchen in the Ruhr industrial region.
Fluor Daniel said the facility would be able to produce motor fuels with sulfur content of 50 ppm, the European standard effective in 2005.
Fluor Daniel would revamp and upgrade two diesel desulfurizers and construct a gasoline desulfurizer using a process from Institut Francais du Petrole. The refineries' utility and infrastructure systems also would be upgraded.
