NAFTA strengthens its international positioning

This past year, NAFTA sought to strengthen its position in international markets. An important milestone was closing the transaction with DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG to purchase the Inzenham-West, Wolfersberg and Breitbrunn/Eggstätt underground storage facilities in Bavaria, enabling NAFTA to expand its activities and apply the many years of know-how it has developed in underground storage of natural gas. NAFTA’s successful acquisition increased its storage capacity to 60 TWh, making it the sixth largest natural gas storage facility operator in Europe.

In exploration and production of hydrocarbons, NAFTA continued working together with a foreign partner from Vermillion Energy to ready drilling projects in the Trnava exploration area. Expanding their cooperation, both companies acquired a new 1,190-square-kilometer exploration area at Topoľčany. In eastern Slovakia, NAFTA also won the Beša exploration area where it plans to explore for potential hydrocarbon production.

NAFTA has also continued further exploration in Western Ukraine, working with CUB Energy Inc. to obtain licenses to drill the first exploration wells near Uzhhorod.

“Despite the many challenges in the energy market, NAFTA is today operating beyond Slovakia in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and Ukraine,” said Martin Bartošovič, the CEO of NAFTA. Thanks to the initiative of our employees, effective use of the know-how built over many years and advanced technology, our company has great potential to continue growing and developing both in local and international markets.”

Besides these partnerships, NAFTA last year also joined the hydrogen initiative, whose goal is to maximize the potential of hydrogen as an energy carrier produced from renewable resources. NAFTA’s underground storage facilities are providing it with the opportunity to develop competence even in innovative energy storage. Therefore, in 2018 it actively participated in several projects related to storing energy from renewable resources.

"Our vision is to build upon development projects and international cooperation to become a European player in natural gas storage, offering our clients a wide range of innovative products,” added the CEO of NAFTA a.s.

NAFTA is an international company with extensive experience natural gas storage and underground facility development and, at the same time, it is the Slovak leader in exploration and production of hydrocarbons. The majority shareholder of NAFTA a.s. owning 56.15% of shares is SPP Infrastructure, a. s., Czech Gas Holding Investment B.V. owns 40.45% of shares.