OMV to Switch Focus to Exploration and Production

Oil and gas group OMV AG today announced its intent to sell its subsidiaries in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of its revised focus on exploration and production projects in the future. The sales would constitute a total withdrawal from both markets.

Currently, OMV wholly owns a retail and commercial business in Croatia, employing 70 staff and supplying through 63 filling stations, while its Bosnian Herzegovinian branch employs 23 staff and has 28 filling stations.

A statement from OMV says that the company has decided to move shift its current focus, gradually steering its portfolio away from refining and marketing towards exploration and production and gas and power.

"Discussions with potentially interested parties will start in the next few months," the company says. "OMV assumes that the buyer will continue to operate the companies in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina on the same scale as before.

"At the same time the structure of the total potential divestments in the business segment Refining and Marketing, which could reach up to €1 billion by 2014 and involves reducing refining capacity and marketing assets, will be decided. Currently no further market exits from countries with OMV filling stations are planned."