Austria’s OMV says Sudan exit was commercial, not political move

BARCELONA, May 19, 2004 (Platts) — Austria’s OMV sold its undeveloped Sudanese oil assets out of need to raise funds for more near-term projects rather than frustration with the war-torn country’s political instability, OMV’s vice president of upstream business development Paul Griggs said Wednesday.

OMV pulled out of Sudan after selling its two exploration blocks to India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp for $115-mil last September. The blocks were OMV’s only assets in Sudan, where 20 years of civil war have continually hampered efforts by oil companies to find and develop oil fields.

“I think our head of exploration is never going to forgive me for having sold the assets there, but it wasn’t a political decision, it was a commercial one,” Griggs told an oil conference in Barcelona when asked if OMV would now consider returning to Sudan given the recent peace breakthrough in the country.