ZAO Achimgaz, the joint venture company operated by BASF subsidiary Wintershall and the Russian gas producer OAO Gazprom, finished its first production wells in 2006 ? just three years after the company was formed. The BASF subsidiary Wintershall is the first German producer to be directly involved in gas production in Siberia. Over the next 40 years the German-Russian joint venture will produce a total of 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 40 million metric tons of condensate from one of the world's largest gas fields. Both companies contribute their specific strengths to the joint venture: for instance, Gazprom has many years of experience in producing gas in Arctic regions, while Wintershall has many years of experience with technically demanding reservoirs ? especially with horizontal wells under challenging geological conditions. The Achimgaz joint venture, named after the Achimov formation from which the gas will be produced, hopes to produce up to 8.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year. By way of comparison: this would be enough to supply four million family homes in Germany for a whole year.