German gas marketing joint venture Wingas on Wednesday opened an office in Dutch Rijswijk near The Hague to expand its sales in the Benelux region, it said in a statement.

Wingas, which is part of Wintershall, the oil and gas arm of chemicals group BASF, set up an office in Belgium in 2003 as part of a strategy to supply customers in European countries outside Germany, where it has a 20% gas market share.

"We aim to raise our market share in the Netherlands successively along the lines of our growth in Belgium," said Gerhard Koenig, in charge of gas trading at Wintershall.

Koenig said the company was responding to demands by existing customers elsewhere, who were also active in the Netherlands, to be supplied there.

Wingas, a 50/50% Wintershall/Gazprom firm, which is also active in Britain, stands to benefit from a commission to market more Russian gas volumes from Nord Stream, a supply route from Siberia into Europe from the end of 2011 onwards.

Last December it agreed to supply Eneco, the Netherland's third largest energy company, with gas from 2012 through to 2030. European spot markets for gas have sprung up in the Netherlands and Germany due to deregulation and convergence, which have made the Netherlands the most pivotal point for linking up the continent and UK gas.

Wingas last year sold 317.9 billion kilowatt hours of gas Europe-wide.