While it looks like Germany gave up some claims on first glance that is a bit misleading. That area is strangely shaped (coined Duck's Bill) to make Germany's a

While it looks like Germany gave up some claims on first glance that is a bit misleading. That area is strangely shaped (coined Duck's Bill) to make Germany's area larger after a 1969 ICJ judgement[0]. They probably purposefully added areas without much oil leading to this shape. Germany produces about 3% of its oil demand in own fields (with two of them being in the North Sea, Mittelplate[1] is largest). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Continental_Shelf_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Continental_Shelf_ca... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelplate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelplate