22 april
The Austrian oil company OMV reported that, having refused to supply Russian oil, it compensated for Kazakh oil, however, in small volumes, the publication reports «SK News».
On March 24, the Austrian company OMV refused to pay for hydrocarbons of Russian origin in rubles. This was stated by the head of the Austrian company OMV Alfred Stern PULS 24. "We have no other contractual basis, I should not do anything like that," – said Stern. A little later, OMV stated that in its long-term strategy it no longer considers Russia as a key region for its future investments. "Our oil purchases from Russia have always been very small, and since the beginning of the war we have replaced it with other oil from the market," – said the representative of the oil and gas company OMV.
Austria refused Russian oil after the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. According to the Statistics Office of Austria and the Association of the Petroleum Industry, the import of Russian oil amounted to about 7.8%. At the same time, the share of oil imports from Kazakhstan is 38.9%. Kazakhstan has been the main supplier of oil to Austria for many years. The share of oil imports from Libya and Iraq is 22.1% and 20.7%, respectively.
Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung AG (OMV) is the largest Austrian oil company in Central Europe with headquarters in Vienna. The company was founded in 1956. In 1985, the company launched its first overseas project in Libya. In 2004, OMV acquired 51% of the shares of the Romanian oil and gas company Petrom S.A. In 2006-2010, OMV conducted business in Russia: it owned shares in a number of companies that had licenses for exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the Saratov region and the Komi Republic. In 2010, the company got rid of Russian assets. 31.5% of OMV shares belong to the Austrian state-owned company OIAG, 50.9% are in free circulation.
The company produces 317 thousand barrels of oil per day. In addition, OMV owns gas pipelines with a length of 2000 km, the company sells about 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year. OMV processes oil at two of its own refineries in Austria and Germany, with a total capacity of 12.4 million tons of oil per year. The company's reserves amount (together with Romanian Petrom) to 1.21 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
In 2004, OMV showed interest in creating new projects for the exploration and development of oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan, including on the Caspian shelf. In September 2004, a meeting was held in Astana with the management of JSC NC "KazMunayGas", at which representatives of the Austrian company "expressed their intention to study in more detail the possibilities and conditions of cooperation." But to a greater extent, the visit of the OMV delegation was related to the evaluation of projects of the Romanian oil company Petrom, which carried out three exploration and production projects and one hydrocarbon exploration project in Kazakhstan.
Petrom owned six licenses for oil exploration and production. The Tazbulat, Turkmenoy and Aktas fields, discovered in Soviet times, were put into operation (they were managed by Tasbulat Oil Corporation LLP, a subsidiary of Petrom), located in the west of Kazakhstan. The total volume of oil production was 3,000 barrels per day. Petrom's divisions carried out seismic exploration at the Komsomolskoye and Sinelnikovskoye fields and geological exploration at the Jusali block with an area of 20,000 sq. km. However, in December 20221, the joint company OMV Petrom sold its assets in Kazakhstan – Kom-Munai and Tasbulat Oil.
"The decision will allow us to focus on the Black Sea region," – the representative of the company said then