Oil and gas company OMV AG (OMV.VI) will prioritize exploration and production projects, due to the recent drop in oil prices, and so won't be able to meet its organic 2010 production target, head of E&P and board member Helmut Langanger told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.
"We have to adjust to the new oil price, which means we are prioritizing and delaying projects. We will push a number of projects back, maybe a year or two," said Langanger in an interview.
"As a result, the production will also be a little less than the 400,000 (barrels of oil equivalent a day) targeted," Langanger said, underlining that projects won't be canceled, but merely postponed.
OMV's 2010 production target is for 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, of which 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day should be reached through organic growth of the existing exploration and production portfolio. Output from the third quarter was 316,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.
Langanger said the company is currently evaluating which projects should go ahead, and which need to be postponed. He said it was too early to quantify how much of the targeted growth could be postponed, but said: "...it could mean that we may only carry out 70% of the drillings we initially had in mind."
Langanger had previously told Dow Jones Newswires the 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day it planned to buy to reach the total 2010 target is "elastic" and may also not be reached, as E&P assets are currently few and priced too high.
Langanger said Tuesday OMV will present the specific project-portfolio adjustments at the company's investor day in mid-November.