OMV agrees to divest its stake in the Maari Field, New Zealand

OMV, the international integrated oil and gas company headquartered in Vienna, has agreed to sell its 69% interest in the Maari Field, located in New Zealand’s offshore Taranaki Basin, to Jadestone Energy Inc., an independent oil and gas company focused on the Asia Pacific region.

The agreed purchase price is USD 50 mn, subject to closing adjustments. The effective date of the transaction is January 1, 2019 and the closing of the transaction is subject to Joint Venture and New Zealand Government approvals. Average production of the divested assets in 2018 was around 5 kboe/d (net to OMV).

“The divestment of the Maari Field further optimizes our portfolio and will shift us in New Zealand to a gas-only producer. This underlines OMV’s strategy to produce significantly more natural gas than oil to reduce the carbon intensity of the product portfolio in the future”, said Johann Pleininger, OMV Board Member Upstream and Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board.

OMV will continue to operate the Māui and Pohokura gas fields – which together produced 37 kboe/d year to date (net to OMV) and contain about a third of New Zealand’s gas reserves. OMV is investing a further USD 300 mn on a range of projects to extend the lives of the Māui and Pohokura gas fields over the next two years and to maintain New Zealand’s gas supply.

Background information:

OMV New Zealand
OMV New Zealand is an oil and gas company that has operated in New Zealand for 20 years. It is a subsidiary of OMV Upstream, which is part of the OMV Group. OMV New Zealand currently employs over 400 staff. Most are New Zealanders, and are largely based in Taranaki, where OMV runs the Māui and Pohokura gas fields. The two gas fields contain about a third of the country’s gas reserves. 

OMV Aktiengesellschaft
OMV produces and markets oil and gas, innovative energy and high-end petrochemical solutions – in a responsible way. With Group sales of EUR 23 bn and a workforce of more than 20,000 employees in 2018, OMV Aktiengesellschaft is one of Austria’s largest listed industrial companies. In Upstream, OMV has a strong base in Romania and Austria as part of the Central and Eastern Europe core region as well as a balanced international portfolio, with Russia, North Sea, Middle East and Africa as well as Asia-Pacific as further core regions. 2018 daily production stood at approximately 427,000 boe/d. In Downstream, OMV operates three refineries with a total annual processing capacity of 17.8 mn tons and more than 2,000 filling stations in ten countries. OMV runs gas storage facilities in Austria and Germany; its subsidiary Gas Connect Austria GmbH operates a gas pipeline network in Austria. In 2018, gas sales volumes amounted to around 114 TWh. Sustainability is an integral part of the corporate strategy. OMV is set to invest EUR 500 mn in innovative energy solutions by 2025.