FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Gazprom-owned (>> Gazprom PAO) German gas wholesale trader Wingas expects to win more customers across Europe in 2016 but is uncertain if record sales volumes in 2015 can be repeated in an oversupplied market.

Chief Executive Gerhard Koenig said the company, a joint venture between Gazprom and BASF (>> BASF SE) until the Russian gas group became sole owner last October, benefited from cool weather and traded more spot gas in 2015.

"We sold 630 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) last year, raising our sales by 26.8 percent after 497 billion a year earlier," Koenig told Reuters exclusively in his first interview since the ownership change."The main reason was higher usage due to cooler weather, but another was our increased activity on the spot trading hubs," he added.

A market share of 20 percent in Germany, behind competitor E.ON (>> E.ON SE) but above EnBW (>> Enbw Energie Baden Wuerttemberg AG) and RWE (>> RWE AG), might not be raised immediately in a stagnating market.

"If we could narrowly repeat our very good sales volumes of 2015 this year, I would be pleased," he said.

Analysts say Gazprom will have to become more flexible on pricing to defend its market share in Europe given rising competition from imported liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Wingas, which employs 550 people in Kessel in central Germany, reported record revenue of 14.4 billion euros (11 billion pounds) last year, up from 12.6 billion.

Germany's gas consumption rose by 5 percent to 866 billion kWh last year, industry data showed.

HEATING, TRANSPORT OPPORTUNITIES

Koenig said that Wingas was active on virtual spot hubs that have sprung up in Britain, the Benelux countries and Germany, complementing supply deals with customers in a range of European countries, where it seeks to raise market share.

Wingas sees opportunities in Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain, among others, he said.

"Europe's gas production will go down in the long term. We will have to import more," he said.

Koenig said apart from heavy industry and electricity, where gas may take share away from polluting coal generation, there were opportunities in home heating and transport.

Burning gas generates less than half the emissions of coal.

Koenig criticised plans by the European Commission to reorganise gas supply security and transparency, calling them bureaucratic. The Commission plans to scrutinise Gazprom's activities closely in the light of the fact that Russia supplies a third of the EU's gas.

"This gives me the impression that the share of Russian gas is meant to be limited by regulatory means," he said.

Koenig said that Gazprom was the only major producer investing in European pipeline and storage infrastructure, including bumping up capacity at Wingas subsidiary Astora which operates in Germany and Austria.

The price of gas for 2017 at Germany's NCG trading point has fallen by a third over the last 12 months.

(Additional reporting by Christoph Steitz and Georgina Prodhan; editing by Victoria Bryan and Jason Neely)

By Vera Eckert and Tom Käckenhoff