OMV Sets Sights on E&P Growth

On September 21 – 22, 2011, OMV is hosting a Capital Markets Day and Media Summit in Istanbul to inform about the results of an extensive strategy review initiated by its CEO Gerhard Roiss and undertaken in the course of the last months. OMV aims to become more focused and simplified with the emphasis on growing in upstream, on integrated gas and on a restructured oil downstream business. A performance program will increase profitability and improve competitiveness.

Gerhard Roiss, CEO and Chairman of the OMV Executive Board, stated, "We aim to be a focused, integrated oil and gas company with improved profitability and strong growth in upstream. Exploration and production of oil and gas offers significant growth potentials and attractive returns. An integrated gas business from the production site to European markets will strengthen our role in the European gas business. As a consequence, we will gradually shift the portfolio from Refining and Marketing to Exploration and Production and to Gas and Power. While Refining and Marketing will continue to be an important business segment for OMV, the exposure to the segment will be adjusted reflecting the challenging oil downstream environment. I strongly believe that with the strategy presented today, we are striking the right balance between building on past achievements of the Group while at the same time heralding a new period of focused, more integrated growth."

The main cornerstones of OMV's strategy to achieve profitable growth are:

Grow upstream: Exploration and Production (E&P) is the growth driver within OMV's portfolio. OMV will direct approximately two-thirds of future investments towards exploration and production of oil and gas. Growth will come through a variety of activities: The foundation will be an increased performance of the existing upstream portfolio. The speed of resource maturation from discovery to production will be further increased. Targeted acquisitions will expand our production and will add development options. A renewed exploration portfolio and increased exploration activities will lay grounds for a healthy upstream portfolio and long-term growth. Our regional focus will be the Caspian region, Middle East and Africa.

Integrated gas: Gas will be the primary source of energy in Europe. Other than the world market product oil, gas needs regional integration from the gas field to the markets via various logistic networks. OMV will expand its position along the entire gas value chain. Gas-fired power plants will be used to add a new and attractive outlet for our equity gas and will complement our gas sales and trading business. New equity gas positions in the Caspian region, Middle East and Africa from the E&P business segment will be developed in alignment with the Gas and Power market strategy. Nabucco will remain a key project for OMV, offering long-term gas supply for Europe. OMV is ideally positioned to capture the value of the Nabucco gas pipeline along its route through OMV's core markets Turkey and Romania to the European gas turntable in Baumgarten in Austria.

Restructured oil downstream: Reflecting contracting oil product demand in Europe, OMV will adjust its exposure to the Refining and Marketing (R&M) business segment and targets divestments in the magnitude of up to EUR 1 bn until 2014 by decreasing refining capacity and marketing assets. Furthermore, OMV will change the product yield of its refineries towards market demand for middle distillates and petrochemical feedstock, especially propylene. R&M will also increase its asset optimization activities via enhanced asset-backed trading capabilities. Special emphasis will be put on effective management of capital and cost efficiency.

Improved performance across the entire OMV Group: To support the path to profitable growth, OMV will launch an ambitious performance improvement program to increase ROACE by 2% points by 2014. The program will target margin improvements, cost reduction and capital management.


Most Popular Articles