[12][13] In December 2023, an agreement was signed for the acquisition of Wintershall Dea by the British gas and oil production company Harbour Energy for $11.2 billion.

As of 2019[update] Wintershall Dea operated in the field of gas and oil exploration and production in 13 countries in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa and Russia with headquarters in Kassel and Hamburg.

[14] As of 2020[update] the company had numerous gas assets in Russia and was a key factor in financing the Nord Stream 2 project, lending substantial sums to the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom.

[15] Mikhail Fridman, Russian oligarch and prominent enabler of the Vladimir Putin regime in Russia, has been a minority shareholder in DEA.

[15][17] In January 2023, about one year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Wintershall Dea stopped its business operations in Russia with an estimated loss of 1.4 billion Euros.

[18] In December 2023 a Russian presidential decree gave the government the power to confiscate and forcibly sell off assets belonging to European energy firms including shares in the Yuzhno-Russkoye oil and gas field, currently owned by Austria’s OMV and Wintershall Dea.