BASF oil and gas subsidiary Wintershall plans to drill up to five test wells in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with an eye to carrying out hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The company's experts currently are seeking to determine which sites would be suitable for the tests, executives told the newspaper Rheinische Post. They said attention is being focused on concessions Winterhall has in three districts, in particular Mettmann, Hochsauerland and Märkischer Kreis.

Joachim Pünnel, who heads the BASF subsidiary's German activities, told the newspaper that activities at present are limited to geological evaluation to determine the sites' potential and that drilling deeper than 300 meters or fracking were not yet on the agenda.

Calling on the German government to embrace unconventional gas, BASF's CEO Kurt Bock recently suggested that Germany could possess enough shale gas reserves to supply its needs for around 10 years.