Austria: OMV Positive on Petrom for 2010
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 |
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OMV hopes that Petrom will have a capital hike this year and sees
good prospects for the unit in 2010, OMV's chief executive said. In the
same week IPIC raised its stake in OMV to 20%.
Petrom in Romania which is 51 percent-owned by OMV, was planning a
share issue which might be worth €1 billion . OMV said at the time it
would support such a move, which would be needed to address Petrom's
growth potential. "We would be committed to inject equity into
the company at any point in time, we hope that this will be possible in
2010," Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer told media. "We regard Romania as a
highly attractive investment area, we will continue to invest in this
area."
Ruttenstorfer said it was unlikely OMV would meet its 2010 group
production target of 350,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, echoing
comments from OMV's exploration and production chief in November.
"Romania is not to blame," Ruttenstorfer said, adding the overall
target was simply too optimistic at the time. The Vienna-based group
will publish its fourth-quarter trading update on Jan. 29.
In a separate development, International Petroleum Investment
Company (IPIC) of Abu Dhabi has raised its stake in Austria's OMV to
20%. IPIC has raised its stake to 20 percent from 19.6 percent
previously, OMV said in a statement. Shares in the company continued to
trade around 2 percent higher at €32.16. IPIC and Austria's state
holding company OeIAG, OMV's other big shareholder, now hold 51.7
percent of voting rights combined, the statement added.
PetrolWorld 010210
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