Austrian energy giant OMV Group plans to step up investments in the UAE by building on its strong, existing partnerships with Abu Dhabi’s state-owned energy companies, according to media reports.
“We are ready to increase our investments and further intensify our partnership with Ipic and Adnoc. OMV has a clear vision about its business in Abu Dhabi. We would like to build step-wise, an integrated business as an investor and as a strong partner of Adnoc,” said Rainer Seele, CEO of OMV, speaking to Gulf News.
OMV has significant investments in Abu Dhabi and has three ongoing projects with Adnoc, including the sour gas project in Shuweihat with Wintershall, an appraisal project for undeveloped offshore oil and gas fields in the north-west of Abu Dhabi with Occidental Petroleum and an exploration project for oil and gas in the Eastern Region.
The company is also involved in the Borouge project for the production of petrochemicals through Borealis (OMV has 36% stake in Borealis).
“We are interested [in increasing] our cooperation with Adnoc to further expand the Borouge petrochemical site, which is the world’s largest integrated petrochemical complex. Together, Adnoc and Borealis have invested around $10bn (Dh36.73bn) and created 3,000 new jobs in Abu Dhabi,” he said about Borouge.
Seele is optimistic about OMV’s future relationship with Abu Dhabi, post the Ipic (International Petroleum Investment Company)-Mubadala merger, which was formalised this month. Ipic holds a 25% stake in OMV.
“We are not in a position to comment on the merger. We have to wait until the merger is completed. Given the fact that we do have such good friendship between Abu Dhabi and Austria, we think this is a successful partnership between the two countries and will continue in the coming years.”
In an agreement signed last year, Ipic and the Austrian holding OBIB have decided to extend their cooperation.
Suhail Al Mazroui, UAE Energy Minister and managing director of Ipic said in a statement last year the continuation of the cooperation with OMV reflects strong energy ties between the two countries and strong investment of strategy of Ipic around the world.
Apart from Abu Dhabi, the oil and gas firm has a number of projects in the Middle East including in trouble spots like Libya and Iran.
Seele expressed cautious optimism on Libya’s oil production.
“On Libya, we are cautiously optimistic and the country has the potential to increase its production. Our production in Libya was about 3,000 barrels of oil per day in the fourth quarter 2016.”
Libya, which is exempted from Opec’s (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) agreement on production cuts has increased its production from 300,000 barrels a day in August, to about 700,000 barrels a day in recent times due to improvement of the security situation in the country.
