RAG Austria

Zistersdorf oil field and Soviet occupation

In 1938, with the development of the Gaiselberg oil field, the oil discovery that made the small town of Zistersdorf the epitome of the oil wealth of the Vienna Basin, took place. The oil-bearing layers of the Gaiselberg field, located almost one kilometer south-west of Zistersdorf, cover an area of only about 2.5 km², but along a geological fracture (the so-called Steinbergbruch) there are a number of oil-bearing layers one above the other, whose depth ranges from 800 m to almost 2,400 m.

During the period of the "Anschluss" of Austria to Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945, the RAG was continued as "enemy property" by a German asset manager. In the following period of Soviet occupation of Eastern Austria from 1945 to 1955, the RAG was de facto not nationalised despite a decision in 1946, but most of the drilling equipment was taken to the USSR as spoils of war and the entire production had to be transferred to the Soviet Petroleum Administration. As a result, the production rights in the Vienna Basin were also restricted to the two oil fields RAG/Gösting and Gaiselberg, which existed before 1945, and which remained so even after the withdrawal of the Soviet occupying power in 1955.

In 1948 and 1951, however, RAG received research assignments from the Geological Survey of Austria in the former US occupation zone in Upper Austria. In May 1956, a new deep drilling rig made Austria's first major oil discovery outside the Vienna Basin near Puchkirchen. The following years were rather sobering. Only near Ried im Innkreis a significant oil field was discovered in 1959.

Concessions in Upper Austria

In 1960 RAG's concession area in Upper Austria was extended to the area south of Wels. As early as 1962, the most productive Austrian oil field outside the Vienna Basin to date was discovered in Voitsdorf in the municipality of Ried im Traunkreis. The field extends to about 10 km in an east-west direction and was developed via 43 wells, 10 of which were still being used for production in 2007. The north-south extension is only slightly more than one kilometre. More than 3 million tons of oil have been extracted from the two oil-bearing horizons at depths of 2100 to 2200 metres.

Around the Voitsdorf field, further large oil fields were developed until 1980: Eberstalzell (previous oil production approx. 500,000 tons; 2012 3 wells active), Engenfeld (approx. 150,000 tons; 2012 1 well active), Oberaustall (approx. 200,000 tons; 2012 1 well active), Sattledt (approx. 1 million tons, 2012 6 wells active) and Steinhaus (approx. 200,000 tons; 2012 1 well active).

In 1968, the highest annual production in the company's history was achieved with 419,118 tons of crude oil, more than half of which came from the Voitsdorf field. After that, crude oil production declined and reached its temporary low in 2005 with only 75,275 tons. Since then, the discovery of larger reservoirs in Hiersdorf west of Wartberg an der Krems as well as near Bad Hall and Sierning has increased production to 123,704 tons (15% of Austrian crude oil production) by 2011, of which 104,204 tons came from the foothills of the Upper Austrian Alps and 19,500 tons from the two fields near Zistersdorf.

RAG has developed a total of about 50 oil and gas fields in Austria to date. Due to the rise in oil prices, the relatively expensive development of oil reservoirs in Austria has been intensified again in recent years. After 2000, this led to several major oil discoveries in the eastern concession area around the health resort of Bad Hall.

Natural gas production

In the 1970s, the development of natural gas reservoirs became more important. Especially in western Upper Austria, about 15 km on each side of a line from Kremsmünster to Burghausen, a large number of medium-sized and smaller natural gas reservoirs were discovered, mostly at depths of 500 m to 1500 m. In 1997, the Haidach natural gas reservoir (Straßwalchen, Upper Austria) was discovered using modern geophysical methods. With a total volume of 4.3 billion cubic metres of natural gas, this was one of the largest gas discoveries in Austria. In 1977, the largest annual production was achieved with almost 880 million cubic metres of natural gas. In 2018, the annual production was 135 million cubic metres of natural gas. | Turnover = 509.4 million euros (2018)

Gas production

Natural gas is produced from reservoirs in Upper Austria and Salzburg. In addition, RAG is conducting research on the production of renewable gas in the Underground Sun Conversion project. Hydrogen produced from wind and solar energy is converted into renewable gas underground in natural reservoirs using microorganisms and can thus be stored there in large quantities. RAG also implements geothermal projects and thus uses geothermal energy.

Energy storage

RAG's current core business is the large-scale storage of gaseous energy (methane, hydrogen) in natural underground reservoirs. The gas storage facilities operated by RAG, with a working gas volume of around six billion cubic metres, serve to ensure security of supply in Austria and Europe.

Supply

The storage facilities and storage services of RAG are part of the critical infrastructure of Austria according to Directive 2008/114/EC of the Council of the European Union. RAG provides its services all year round and without interruption. From its own production, RAG supplies regional natural gas and geothermal energy independent of imports. RAG also operates its own CNG and LNG filling stations.

Natural gas vehicles – LNG and CNG

Since 2017, RAG has been operating Austria's first LNG filling station in Ennshafen near Linz. The natural gas comes, among other things, from domestic RAG natural gas reservoirs and is processed in RAG's own LNG facility in Gampern in Upper Austria, where about two tons of LNG are produced per day. This corresponds to a refuelling of 10-15 trucks per day. In 2019, Austria's second LNG filling station was opened in Feldkirchen near Graz. F. Leitner Mineralöle and RAG Austria AG invested a total of 1.5 million Euros in this project. With a storage capacity of 50 cubic metres of LNG, the facility is the largest in Austria.