In August 2008 OMV, Central Europe’s leading oil and gas company, starts production out of gas fields Strasshof and Ebenthal, both located in the Vienna Basin. This brings OMV closer towards its goal of increasing domestic oil and gas production by approx. 20% till 2010.The field developments of Strasshof and Ebenthal with total costs of EUR 210 mn have been advanced since 2005. With combined investments of EUR 500 mn in 2008 and 2009 for domestic E&P projects OMV significantly contributes to Austria‘s long-term energy supply security.

Helmut Langanger, OMV Executive Board Member responsible for Exploration and Production stated: „ With its domestic activities OMV significantly contributes to the energy supply of Austria. As the oil and gas exploration in Austria turns more and more difficult due to the maturity of most fields, I am particularly happy that we have been able to successfully increase our domestic production in the past years through substantial investments, the use of state-of-the-art technologies as well as our professional expertise. Therefore, I am confident, will we be able to ramp up our domestic production by around 20% till 2010."

The recent production start of Strasshof and Ebenthal is an important step of OMV Austria Exploration & Production GmbH to increase its current daily production of ca. 40,000 boe/d by about 20% till 2010. The gas production of both fields is fed into the Austrian supply network.

Since the Strasshof discovery well in 2005 OMV has drilled four additional wells estimating gas reserves at approx. 4 bcm (25 mn boe). Furthermore, gas processing infrastructure was built and the existing sour gas treatment plant Aderklaa expanded. In total, EUR 175 mn have been invested. The maximum production of the first expansion stage of Strasshof will be 650,000 cbm/d (4,000 boe/d) and corresponds to 20% of OMV’s domestic gas production.

Field Ebenthal with gas reserves of about 1.5 bcm was also discovered in 2005 requiring total investments of EUR 35 mn. The field development Ebenthal comprises the setup of gas treatment infrastructure and the revamp of the compressor station Auersthal. To connect Ebenthal with the compressor station a 16 km pipeline was built. Ebenthal will reach full capacity of 500,000 cbm/d (3,000 boe/d) in September 2008 which equals 15% of OMV’s domestic gas production.

In 2008 and 2009 EUR 250 mn will be invested each year into expanding Austrian oil and gas production for long-term supply security. Apart from maintaining and servicing existing infrastructure OMV’s focus will be on optimizing production of its mature oil fields as well as exploring for new reserves.

Environmentally sound production technologies and low emissions are particularly important for OMV. With Baumgarten becoming an increasingly important Central European gas hub additional gas storage opportunities are being investigated. Therefore, OMV’s oil and gas production in Austria remains essential to the Group’s result.

At the end of 2007, OMV held reserves in Austria of 143 mn boe with natural gas reserves of 14.8 bcm (87 Mio boe) and crude oil reserves of 7.9 mn tons (56 mn bbl ).

Tags: OMV Aktiengesellschaft