OMV acquires 24.99% share in Russian gas field for €1.719bn

Austria-based integrated oil and gas company OMV has closed the €1.719bn acquisition of Uniper SE’s 24.99% share in the Yuzhno Russkoye natural gas field located in Western Siberia.

The development follows all closing conditions in connection with the transaction being fulfilled, including regulatory and co-shareholder approvals.

In March this year, OMV reached an agreement with Uniper regarding the acquisition.

OMV executive board chairman and CEO Rainer Seele said: “The closing of this landmark transaction is a further milestone in OMV’s successful delivery on its corporate strategy to establish Russia as a new core region of OMV.

“Our stake in Yuzhno Russkoye adds 100,000boed to OMV’s production.

“This boosts OMV’s total production to more than 430,000boed.”

The Yuzhno Russkoye field is situated in the Yamal-Nenets region and its current plateau production is around 25 billion cubic metres per year.

The licence over the field will expire by the end of 2043.

OMV deputy CEO and upstream board member Johann Pleininger said: “With this acquisition, OMV gets additional recoverable reserves of 580m barrels of oil equivalent (boe). In addition, our production costs will be further decreased.”

The company has upstream operations in Romania and Austria, as well as an international portfolio.

Its daily production for last year stood at around 311,000boed.

As of June this year, OMV had an annual refining capacity of 17.8 million tonnes and operated more than 2,000 filling stations across ten countries.

In addition, the company operates a gas pipeline network in Austria, in addition to gas storage facilities in Austria and Germany.