A technical issue at oil giant OMV’s Schwechat refinery on Saturday forced the government to release strategic gasoline stocks while OMV considers what to do about its investments in Russia.
The government announced a release of 112,000 tonnes of petrol and 56,000 tonnes of diesel. The release will cover a period of about 14 days, while OMV had so far not been able to determine for how long the refinery’s “technical malfunction”, which has damaged the main distillation unit for crude oil, would last.
“We act quickly and release part of the reserve so that no bottlenecks can occur,” said Chancellor Karl Nehammer.
The Schwechat refinery is one of Europe’s largest and most modern inland refineries in which OMV distils and refines crude oil and semi-finished products.
This is more trouble for OMV, which stopped importing Russian oil in March and must now grapple with its close business ties to Russia.
OMV had been part of the Western investment consortium that co-financed the now-abandoned Nord Stream 2 pipeline together with the Kremlin. The company had also extended its long-term contract for gas deliveries with Gazprom until 2040 in 2018, with no exit clause.
OMV will seek a review of the decisions of ex-CEO Rainer Seele whose investments in Russia and Nord Stream 2 were, in hindsight, a mistake, the company’s supervisory board chair said on Friday.
“It has to be said so clearly: The investments were – viewed ex-post – a mistake. If we now have to write down two billion in the first quarter of 2022, everyone involved must stop trying to defend the decisions,” Mark Garett, the head of the supervisory board, added.