Rohöl-Aufsuchungs Aktiengesellschaft (RAG) is Austria’s oldest oil and gas company. Its core areas of business are oil and natural gas exploration and production, and gas storage. A joint venture between RAG, Gazprom and Wingas operates the Haidach gas storage facility, and another, with E.ON Gas Storage, runs the 7Fields storage facility. Both facilities straddle the border between the provinces of Salzburg and Upper Austria.
Through its own storage capacity and its role as an operator, RAG plays an important part in the security of supply for Austria and the whole of Central Europe. Our storage capacity now totals 5 billion cubic metres, and a further billion cubic metres will be added by 2014. Our activities also include crude oil stockpiling, natural gas trading and transportation, and renewable energy projects.
Since its foundation RAG has produced over 15 million tonnes of crude oil and 24.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas. In the past few years RAG has added to its exploration and production acreage, and its operations now extend to Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
An oil and gas producer for over 75 years
RAG focused on oil exploration and production until the 1950s, when it also began producing natural gas. We built gas infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s, whilst developing large gas reserves in Upper Austria. We moved into gas storage in the mid-1990s, and this has since become a large, consistently profitable part of our business, with a bright future. The cornerstones of RAG’s success have always been technological innovation, high levels of expertise across all core operations, an enthusiastic workforce that identifies strongly with the company, and a solid ownership structure. We believe that these will continue to be major strengths.
Responsible use of natural resources
The global energy sector is going through a period of radical transformation. Renewable energy use has been rapidly expanding because of the need to meet the rising energy demand of a growing global population. Nevertheless, we are convinced that oil, natural gas and gas storage will remain crucial to energy supplies for a long time to come.
Despite being a traditional energy company, we believe that we have a key role to play as a partner for renewables. The challenge of making solar and wind power economic, and of balancing out seasonal demand variations can only be mastered by storing large quantities of energy – and that means gas storage. Oil will be irreplaceable as a raw material for industry for many years ahead.
RAG will continue to make a major contribution to Austrian energy supplies and storage, as it has throughout its history, and to fulfil its economic function with the utmost responsibility. This includes observing strict safety standards, and implementing projects in close consultation with landowners, residents, public authorities, customers and employees. Our mission is to use the natural resources entrusted to us carefully and responsibly, to the benefit of society.