Business Overview

The Refining & Marketing business segment refines crude oil and other feedstocks, and markets fuels as well as natural gas and power. Its activities include Refining, Supply and Trading, Commercial, Retail, and Gas & Power Eastern Europe. OMV owns a total refining capacity of around 500 kbbl/d, with three wholly owned refineries in Europe and a 15% share in ADNOC Refining and ADNOC Global Trading. In Europe, refining activities are highly integrated with marketing to serve a strong branded retail network and a broad base of commercial customers. Total fuels and other sales volumes Europe amounted to 15.51 mn t in 2022. The strongly branded retail network comprising 1,803 filling stations accounts for around 40% of the sales volumes, while commercial customers are mainly from industrial transportation and construction sectors and account for the remaining sales volumes. In the Gas & Power Eastern Europe business, OMV Petrom operates a gas-fired power plant in Romania and is engaged in gas and power sales.

Refining including product supply and sales

Throughout 2022, we saw exceptional refining margin strength. A boom in benchmark refining margins took hold from the end of the first quarter, when middle distillate tightness really started to become apparent. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which was followed by a raft of “self-sanctioning” measures by western firms in the trade of Russian oil, contributed significantly to this tight picture. Resurgent demand in the first half of the year also exposed significant tightness in the global refining system’s ability to supply additional distillate volumes.

This distillate tightness was consistently the driver of refining economics over the course of the year. With Russia’s established role as a key supplier of distillate molecules into the European market severely curtailed, the value of distillate molecules in Europe surged. This peak was sustained throughout the second quarter, with ultra-low sulfur diesel in Rotterdam averaging a premium of close to USD 50/bbl to Dated Brent over the quarter. Jet quotations tracked a similar high-premium path. The refining system’s struggle to meet demand was also evident in the rate at which inventories were drawn down in high-visibility hubs over the first half of the year. A significant degree of tightness in the production capacity of core refined products can in part be attributed to a raft of capacity losses since the high water mark for demand in 2019.

Late in the second quarter turned out to be the high point for benchmark margins, as refinery supply increasingly caught up with demand as the year progressed. As product supply increased in response to the unprecedented rally in middle distillate and gasoline cracks over the second quarter, headwinds in naphtha and heavy products became increasingly apparent. Naphtha cracks versus Brent in Europe lost more and more ground over the first half of 2022, averaging a discount of more than USD 35/bbl versus Dated Brent in June and posting only a moderate recovery over the second half of 2022. Demand for naphtha remained weak as petrochemical margins remained under significant pressure. Fuel oil cracks similarly failed to post any appreciable recovery from the declines seen over the first part of the year. High-sulfur fuel oil in Rotterdam came off its mid-year lows when it was trading at a discount of more than USD 40/bbl versus Dated Brent, but remains heavily discounted.

The extreme divergence of product cracks throughout 2022 reflects the forced rearrangement of interregional crude and product flows as Russia, a major supplier of both, was shut out of many importing markets. At the same time, European in particular and to some extent Asian gross margins had to reflect the much higher cost of refinery production (i.e., energy and refinery fuel) throughout 2022, which is itself a function of the changes in the European natural gas market on the back of geopolitical upheaval. In sum, the cost of supplying the marginal diesel barrel to the market in 2022 was significantly higher than in 2021.

OMV’s European refineries achieved a utilization rate of 73% in 2022, which was influenced strongly by the planned turnaround activities in the Schwechat and Burghausen refineries, and the incident at the crude oil distillation unit in Schwechat. During the legally required water pressure test as part of the final work on the OMV Schwechat refinery’s turnaround, significant damage occurred to the crude oil distillation unit on June 3, following a mechanical incident. After repair work completed in record time, and without a single incident, the crude oil distillation unit resumed full operations on October 7, 2022.

Despite the challenging environment caused by the unstable geopolitical situation and the incident at the Schwechat refinery, commercial sales delivered ahead of expectations in many areas. The Operating Result was mainly driven by well-executed price management, even with lower volume availability. To closely reflect the market developments and market outlook, OMV’s commercial products and services are being expanded, including the launch of several new, more sustainable products. Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), for example, contributes to a reduction of CO₂ emissions of more than 80% as a result of processing regionally sourced used cooking oil. Starting with the production of around 2 kt of Sustainable Aviation Fuel in 2022, OMV plans to scale production up and to market 700 kt per year by 2030. In terms of sales, OMV is already delivering SAF to Austrian Airlines at Vienna Airport. In addition, MoU agreements with Lufthansa, Ryanair and Wizz Air were signed in 2022, for the supply of up to 1,145 kt SAF in the period 2023–2030.

ADNOC Refining & Trading

Alongside majority shareholder ADNOC (65%) and Eni (20%), OMV is a strategic partner in ADNOC Refining after acquiring 15% of the company’s shares at the end of July 2019. In 2022, ADNOC Refining operated its major refinery in Ruwais, which is the world’s fourth largest refining complex with integrated petrochemicals.

In comparison to 2021, in 2022 the ADNOC Refining business benefitted from a higher margin environment and improved operational performance. With the same ownership structure as ADNOC Refining, ADNOC Global Trading (AGT) trades the majority of ADNOC Refining’s export volumes of products and supplies non-domestic crudes, condensates, and other liquids for processing.

AGT extends the successful Refining & Marketing business model into key geographic regions and to strategic partners. By continuously optimizing trade flows, it allows ADNOC Refining to access competitive non-domestic feedstock sources and implement best practices such as risk management.

During 2022, AGT performance was strong, continuing to pursue its business ambition and substantially growing its third-party trading.

Retail

Despite a challenging environment due to both the war in Ukraine and the shortage in supply, mostly as a result of the crude oil distillation unit incident at the Schwechat refinery, the retail business achieved a remarkable result in 2022 and proved again to be a stable outlet for refinery products and a strong cash generator.

Total sales partially recovered to 6.1 mn t, equivalent to approximately 7.6 bn l, strongly supported by an ongoing growing cards business. At the end of the year, the network comprised 1,803 filling stations (2021: 2,088). OMV especially benefitted from its proven multi-brand strategy in this challenging price environment. The OMV brand is positioned as a premium brand, with VIVA representing a strong shop, gastronomy, and service offering, while the unmanned Avanti brand in Austria and the Petrom brand in Romania serve price-sensitive customer groups. Sales of OMV’s premium-brand fuels MaxxMotion have been under pressure due to the overall consumer price environment, but still contributed to the overall Retail result as a high margin product. The non-fuel business, including VIVA convenience stores and car washes, continued to grow and outperformed 2021. In Austria and Slovakia, a new third-party store partnership with REWE has been successfully introduced. In multiple countries, the loyalty system has been successfully upgraded by utilizing state-of-the-art digital solutions.

The OMV network partners with third parties to provide EV-charging facilities at more than 150 sites, and has introduced the first OMV owned and operated EV chargers in Austria. Further investments in OMV’s own EV-charging infrastructure will be one of the strategic key pillars within the Retail business. Approximately 380 sites are equipped with photovoltaic installations, underlining OMV’s focus on sustainability and resilience.

Following a clear strategy of active portfolio management, OMV has decided to divest certain parts of its retail network. Closing of the divestment of the OMV network in Germany (285 filling stations) to the EG Group took place in April 2022. The announced divestment of OMV Slovenia (118 filling stations) to the MOL Group is dependent on the Merger Clearance process carried out by EU authorities. Furthermore, a divestment agreement was signed for Avanti Germany comprising the sale of 17 unmanned filling stations to PKN Orlen in December 2022.

Gas & Power Eastern Europe

In 2022, the European gas market was characterized by unprecedented high gas prices and significant volatility. This situation is expected to continue.

Similarly, in Romania, both gas and power markets faced unseen volatility and unpredictability levels with high prices and a drop in demand. A series of regulatory interventions and market constraints significantly impacted operations and results, and will continue to do so in the future.

In Romania, OMV Petrom’s gas and power activities once again delivered a record high Operating Result, reflecting outstanding business performance built on the profitable optimization of product, market, and customer portfolios. Natural gas sales volumes to third parties reached 35.8 TWh in 2022 compared to 38.4 TWh in 2021, a very strong performance given the market environment. As the overall market demand was significantly down, OMV Petrom’s gas volumes covered an increasing share of the overall consumption. OMV Petrom managed to source high gas volumes from third parties, thus successfully covering its sales channels. In addition, activities in the neighboring markets, both for gas and power, have been expanded, laying a strong foundation for further extension of our regional footprint. Gas transactions executed outside Romania, diversifying the supply portfolio with LNG, and the enlarged customer portfolio (including small businesses and even residential customers) were successfully managed, improving the results.

OMV Petrom’s net electrical output increased to 5.01 TWh, +5% compared to 2021, and a record high level of production since the start of operations. The Brazi power plant covered around 9% of the national power generation mix, reaching a record high contribution to the security of the national power system. The Brazi power plant celebrated in August 2022, ten years since its commissioning, having generated over 34 TWh of electricity during this period. Looking forward, the Brazi power plant remains a pillar of the Romanian power market, natural gas being a good fit for renewable energy.

Nord Stream 2

OMV is a financial investor in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project along with four other European companies. In 2022, OMV decided to impair the entire outstanding loans and accrued interest (approximately EUR 1 bn). For further details, please refer to Note 2 – Accounting policies, judgements and estimates, section ‘Impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and related significant estimates and assumptions’.