OMV AG has taken a step toward refinery divestment in a strategy announced earlier to shift its focus to exploration and production (OGJ Online, Dec. 6, 2011).
The company has appointed Deutsche Bank to assist with what it describes as “the divestment program in the [refining and marketing] business.”
A possible part of that program, it said, is the sale of its 45% stake in the 215,000-b/cd Bayernoil refining complex near Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany.
The integrated complex has crude oil distillation and catalytic cracking units with related desulfurization and other facilities at two sites: Vohburg and Neustadt. The Neustadt site also has a mild hydrocracker.
OMV said it is focusing its downstream business on refineries integrated with petrochemicals or upstream operations. Its 209,000-b/cd refinery in Schwechat, Austria, and 72,000-b/cd refinery at Burghausen, Germany, have integrated petrochemicals production. Its 90,000-b/cd Petrobrazi refinery in Ploesti, Romania, is fully adapted to Romanian crude oil (OGJ Online, Apr. 13, 2010).
The company also owns the 70,000 b/d Arpechim refinery in Pitesti but has been operating it intermittently and is reported to be preparing to transfer ownership to the Romanian government.
OMV earlier sold a 52% interest in a Cypriot retail company and announced plans to sell subsidiary downstream companies in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Bob Tippee | Editor
Bob Tippee has been chief editor of Oil & Gas Journal since January 1999 and a member of the Journal staff since October 1977. Before joining the magazine, he worked as a reporter at the Tulsa World and served for four years as an officer in the US Air Force. A native of St. Louis, he holds a degree in journalism from the University of Tulsa.
