Austrian oil and gas company OMV AG (OMV.VI) will need most of the rest of the year to bring reliability back to its production levels in Libya, board member Jaap Huijskes said Wednesday at the company's 2012 first-half earnings conference.
"There is work on going. It will take most of the rest of this year to get back to the sort of reliability levels we have seen previously," said Mr. Huijskes, head of OMV's exploration and production business, adding that it wasn't surprising given that production had been shut down for a year.
Earlier Wednesday, Mr. Huijskes said that the problem isn't the fields, as there are "many days" where production reaches pre-crisis levels. It is a problem of reliability, he said.
Prior to the unrest in Libya approximately 10% of OMV's production occurred in the North African country. Since its return to Libya, OMV has been continually bringing production back up to pre-crisis levels. Libyan production is currently at 90% of pre-crisis levels.