NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) - The oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil (Adnoc) is considering the purchase of BASF subsidiary Wintershall Dea, according to circles. The company could be valued at more than ten billion euros, the Bloomberg news agency reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Just under a month ago, Dirk Elvermann, CFO of the German chemicals group, confirmed the goal of divesting the 72.7 percent stake in the oil and gas company. Wintershall Dea wants to legally separate the Russia-related businesses by mid-2024. BASF wants to monetize the non-Russian part. The rest of the company is in the hands of the investment company Letterone.

Last year, BASF incurred a loss of 627 million euros due to multi-billion euro write-downs on its subsidiary Wintershall Dea. In January, Wintershall Dea then announced the end of its business in Russia, which most recently accounted for 50 percent of total production. Elvermann went on to say that the Russian part of the subsidiary had already been written off in full. However, the Group was able to recover some of the money from the state, among others.

The manager referred to considerable state investment guarantees in the low billion euro range. However, the associated claims are not currently shown as receivables in BASF's balance sheet. According to the news agency, another interested party for Wintershall Dea is the British oil company Harbour Energy. Neither Harbour Energy nor Adnoc wished to comment, the report continued. BASF and Wintershall Dea could not initially be reached.

Adnoc, which is controlled by Abu Dhabi, is already attempting to take over the German chemicals group Covestro. In the summer, the media reported that Adnoc had informally held out the prospect of 60 euros per share, which would value Covestro at 11.6 billion euros. It was only in September that the Group announced that it was in talks with Adnoc - the share price subsequently rose to around EUR 54, after the shares had cost less than EUR 40 in mid-June. Since the announcement in September, there has been largely no communication with the outside world, and a little takeover fantasy has escaped from the share price. On Thursday, the shares closed at 47.65 euros. The increase since the beginning of the year is therefore a good 30 percent.

Adnoc is also negotiating a merger of the chemical companies Borealis and Borouge with the Austrian oil and gas group OMV. As Bloomberg recently reported, citing insiders, a merger could create a chemicals and plastics group with a market value of more than 30 billion US dollars (27.5 billion euros). Vienna-based Borealis is 75 percent owned by OMV, with the remainder held by Adnoc. Borouge from Abu Dhabi, which is also listed, is itself a joint venture between Adnoc and Borealis and has a market value of 22 billion dollars./he/ajx