OMV: A Case Study of an Austrian Global Player
MMag. Alexander Smith
When: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 12:30 pm
Where: Liberal Arts Lounge LA 197, University of New Orleans
The OMV Aktiengesellschaft is a globally operative and fully vertically integrated Vienna-based oil and natural gas company. It is in terms of net revenues Austria’s largest corporation and the leading energy group of East Central Europe.
However, OMV is not a Weltkonzern comparable to the major international oil companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, or Chevron. OMV’s significance draws on its specific strategic positioning and role in securing large parts of Europe’s natural gas imports. Due to the company’s post-Cold War strategy of expansion into the new markets of East Central Europe, OMV captured the leading position in the Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern European energy business and thus plays an important role in European energy security.
MMag. Alexander Smith is the Austrian Ministry of Science Fellow at CenterAustria and is working on PhDs in Political Science and Economic History at the University of Innsbruck. He is teaching a course in the History Department on “The Political History of Oil”. He also serves as a guest editor for Volume 20 of Contemporary Austrian Studies to which he contributed an essay on the OMV.