OMV beats gloomy forecasts, eyes Libya output hike

OMV CEO Gerhard Roiss: proud of 2011 performance in face of Libya outage.

OMV, the Austrian oil and gas company quarter-owned by Abu Dhabi’s IPIC investment vehicle, beat gloomy analyst forecasts with a strong set of financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011.

EBIT free of special items and inventory holdings came to EUR730 million ($966 million), an increase of 29% on the year and far above a consensus of analysts’ estimates of EUR582 collected by Reuters.

Exploration and oil production provided EUR525.8 million of the total, up from EUR439.51million for the same period in 2010.

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Production in Libya restarted in 2011 after political unrest in the country forced OMV to stop production. By November 2011, production was approximately 30% of pre-crisis levels and reached approximately 50% by the end of the year, OMV said.

Libya accounts for 10% of OMV's total revenues.

According to a company statement, OMV aims to return to pre-war production levels this year “and beyond.”

“2011 was a successful year for OMV Group," said Gerhard Roiss, OMV CEO. "The year was dominated by the Arab spring which led to highoil prices on the one side but missing volumes from Libya and Yemen on the other. Despite this challenging environment we achieved a strong operating result above last year’s level and strengthened our company’s
financial position to make it fit for the years to come. We have taken the first steps to deliver on the targets we have set in our new strategy presented in September. The divestment program in R&M has been kicked off and our exploration activities are showing an increasingly large impact. We will show our ability to execute and will roll out a group-wide performance improvement program which aims to increase ROACE by 2% points by 2014. I am proud of the Group’s achievements in 2011 and look forward to further delivering our strategy in 2012.”