Oil and gas company OMV Petrom posted its highest net profit ever last year: EUR 886 million, up 72 percent on the year before. Its turnover stood at EUR 5.3 billion, slightly below its record turnover from 2008, of EUR 5.4 billion. The business growth slowed down in the last quarter of the year, when turnover went up by 17 percent and profit, by 7 percent.

"We look back at 2011 as a year of external challenges but strong financial results and outstanding operational performance. This was the result of high investment efforts, effective cost and operational management but also supportive crude prices,” said Mariana Gheorghe, CEO of Petrom (in picture).

The company created provisions of EUR 120 million last year, on account of the fine from the Competition Council. Without the provisions, its profit would have hiked to around EUR 1 billion.

The Competition Council in Romania announced it would fine the six largest oil companies in Romania by up to 3 percent of their 2010 turnover for allegedly agreeing to withdraw a type of gas. The council started to investigate OMV, Petrom, Rompetrol, MOL, Agip and Lukoil in 2005 and continued the investigation in 2009. The six companies allegedly agreed to withdraw a type of gas – Eco Premium- from the Romanian market in 2008. The biggest fine was set to go to Petrom – some EUR 96 million.

OMV Petrom is the largest oil and gas company in Romania. It extracts 805 million barrels of oil in Romania and has a refining capacity of 4.5 million tonnes a year. It runs 800 gas stations in Romania, the Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria and Serbia. The company is majority owned by Austrian OMV. Romania’s Economy Ministry owns 20.64 percent of the company’s shares. Fondul Propietatea owns 20.11 percent and EBRD, 2 percent. Some 6.2 percent is traded on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, where its capitalization is of around EUR 5 billion.

Corina Saceanu, corina@romania-insider.com