Austrian OMV reports 14-pct rise in profits

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

OMV CEO Roiss gestures during news conference in Vienna. OMV reports profit. REUTERS photo

Austrian oil and gas giant OMV has announced that it turned a profit in the first half the year, while many energy giants recorded losses or declines in profits. OMV, which acquired Turkish oil distributor Petrol Ofisi nearly two years ago, seems to be cautious about the Turkish market.

OMV’s first-half net profits rose 14 percent to 735 million euros ($909.5 million), despite challenging political and economic conditions, company statement released yesterday said. Revenues were up 27 percent year-on-year to 20.4 billion euros, while earnings before interest and taxes rose 11 percent to 1.5 billion euros.

“The overall marketing environment in Turkey is expected to remain challenging,” the company said in its report covering January-June and the second quarter of 2012. “In the Kurdistan region of Iraq, extended-well test facilities for Bina Bawi are in preparation and production is expected to start in the first half of 2013. Further appraisal drilling is ongoing.”

“In the first half [of the] year 2012, we continued our strong operating performance despite a very volatile political and economic environment,” Chief Executive Gerhard Roiss said, according to Agence France-Presse.

The company’s new focus on growth in upstream activities -- the extraction of oil and gas -- was “taking shape,” Roiss said, citing a number of new discoveries and deals in the Black Sea, Abu Dhabi, Britain and Norway.

The OMV also said that production levels in Libya were “close to pre-crisis levels.”