Romania's top oil and gas group, OMV Petrom, said on Wednesday it will pay a gross dividend of0.0112 lei ($0.0028
/0.0026 euro)per share for 2014, versus0.0308 lei per share paid a year
earlier.
The company also said in a statement it will invest an
estimated5.3 billion lei this year, 20% below the budgeted investments
for2014. Some 90% of the amount will go to Upstream activities.
DownstreamOilactivities will receive 9% of the budget,while 1%willgo
toinvestments inDownstreamGas.
"We are consistentin our goal of
grantingdividends,butwealsoneed to adjust to thecurrent marketbackdrop,
where wesee a halving of the oil price compared withlast year," OMV Petrom's
CEO Mariana Gheorghe was quoting as saying in the statement. The dividend
proposal aims to remunerateshareholders, but also tosecure
theresourcesrequired to continue the company’s investment programme, she
added.
The totalgrossvalue of dividends that will be distributed
amounts to 634million lei, down from 1.74 billion lei last year.
OMV
Petrom'sconsolidated earnings before interest and taxes fell 44% to
3.34billion leiin 2014, while sales declined by11%.Capital expendituresrose
to 6.24 billion leifrom 5.30 billion lei in 2013.
Blue chip OMV Petrom,
part of Austria's OMV group,is the largest integrated oil and gas group in
Southeastern Europe, with an annual oil and gasproduction of approximately 66
millionboein 2014. At the end of last year the grouphad arefining capacity
of 4.2 million oftonnes peryear andoperatedan 860 MW high efficiency power
plant and a 45 MW wind park. It hadsome780filling stationsin Romania
andneighboringcountries at end-2014.
The company's shares were changing
hands0.21% up at 0.39 lei by 1007 CET on the Bucharest bourse.