Crude oil and petrol

At the Nordenham-Blexen site, we operate a salt cavern storage facility with 8 caverns (5 crude oil and 3 petrol caverns) for storing crude oil products with a total volume of approx. 2.2 million cubic metres. 

A salt cavern is an ideal long-term storage facility for oil and petroleum products. The stored products do not cause the salt of the cavern walls to dissolve. This means that the cavern wall is not damaged and the products are not altered.

Petroleum products are well protected inside the soil. In contrast to large tank farms above ground, underground storage requires only a minimal sealed surface area. This means that the agricultural land can be almost fully utilised.

Why are crude oil and its derivatives stored?

Following the oil embargo by the Arab states in the early 1970s, the German government passed an act in 1973 to adopt a national strategic reserve of crude oil and petroleum products that could bridge a complete import breakdown for 90 days in the event of a crisis.

This is why USG was founded in the 1970s by what was then Wintershall. Since then, we have been active as a storage facility, initially for crude oil and later also for petrol as part of the strategic reserve.

As a storage facility for national reserves, we currently store around 10 % of Germany’s total national reserves on behalf of the German National Petroleum Stockpiling Agency (EBV). This makes us an important pillar of the German oil reserve strategy. In the wake of the diversification of storage contracts, we will also act as a strategic storage facility for other European countries in the future.