Production - Foreign - Petroleum Production in Germany

The commercial production of petroleum in Germany is confined to the North German plain, in the Hereynian foreland, and the intramontane Permian salt basin of Thuringia, south of the Hare Mountains. Petroleum is produced in the former only in connection with salt domes, upthrust through Tertiary and Mezozoic strata of great thickness. In the basin of Thuringia petroleum is found in a Permian dolomite underlying a salt formation. It is exclusively in the peripheric zone of a few of the salt plugs in the North German plains region that commercial oil has so far been developed, notably in the following fields, all in the general region northeast of the city of Hanover: (1) Hänigsen-Obershagen-Nienhagen, south of Celle; producing from horizons in the Upper Triassic, the Middle Jurassic and the Lower Cretaceous; (2) Oberg, south of Peine; producing from horizons in the Middle Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous; (3) Oelheim-Eddesse, north of Peine; producing from horizons in the Upper Triassic, Lower and Middle Jurassic; (4) Wietze, west of Celle, where the main producing horizon is in the Lower Cretaceous. In some of these oil fields production from surface seepages was mentioned as early as 1669 (Oberg). Commercial production of importance dates only from recent time.