Rival central European oil firms OMV and Mol are hiking upstream investment this year in a bid to boost profitability through production growth in the face of a weak downstream. Austria’s OMV spent $2.88bn on its upstream operations in 2011, including over $1bn on acquisitions. It plans to increase exploration expenditure this year from over $680mn last year, “focusing on bigger, high-impact targets”. The firm has been boosted by exploration success already this year, following an estimated 42bn-84bn m3 gas find in the ExxonMobil-operated Neptun block in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea (WPA, 24 February, p10).
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