Group earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) rose to €688 million ($1.02 billion) after stripping out one-off items in the three months to December, while Romanian unit Petrom‘s clean EBIT contributed €237 million. Analysts on average had forecast a 14% rise to €642 million.
For 2008, OMV expected another set of robust earnings, and said it expected production volumes in Romania to increase.
“We expect the main market drivers (crude price, refining margins and the USD/EUR exchange rate) to remain highly volatile throughout 2008,” said OMV in a statement.
The oil and gas firm saw refining margins in 2008 slightly below last year’s level and the US-dollar and euro exchange rates to remain at year-end 2007 levels.
For 2008, OMV also said it planned to shut down its Neustadt refinery for one month in the summer and its Ingolstadt plant permanently in the third quarter of 2008, shaving off 1.5 million tons of annual capacity in German joint venture Bayernoil.
OMV said its reserve replacement rate – the extent to which production is matched by new finds – was 46% in 2007, following 406% in 2006 after the inclusion of Petrom.
OMV shares have fallen more than 11% since the start of the year, in line with the decline in Austria’s blue chip index ATX. (Reuters)
Producing journalism that is worthy of the name is a costly business. For over 30 years, the publishers, editors and reporters of the Budapest Business Journal have striven to bring you business news that works, information that you can trust, that is factual, accurate and presented without fear or favor.Newspaper organizations across the globe have struggled to find a business model that allows them to continue to excel, without compromising their ability to perform. Most recently, some have experimented with the idea of involving their most important stakeholders, their readers.
We would like to offer that same opportunity to our readers. We would like to invite you to help us deliver the quality business journalism you require. Hit our Support the BBJ button and you can choose the how much and how often you send us your contributions.
