The operator's upgrade plans include a refit of modern oil tanks at the Barnstorf treatment plant in Lower Saxony and a new crude oil pipeline to the area's key producing oilfield Duste.

Wintershall’s domestic boss Andreas Scheck said that the company was making the investment in order to “gear up for traditional oil production in the next 30 years”.

The subsidiary of chemicals group BASF is installing three steel tanks with capacity of between 1.5