The tension in the OMV corporate center in Wiener Trabennstrasse was great. The employee representatives invited to the employee meeting for 9 a.m. on Thursday. The occasion is the cost savings and efficiency increase program Revo.
In Austria, the corporate area in particular is to be drained. This includes the top of the group (CEO) and the financial area. The administration has grown strongly in the past ten years, and for well more than 1000 employees. So had ex-OMV boss Rainer soul For the financial sector, more than 200 employees from Romania brought to Austria, with local (and much more expensive) employment contracts.
How many employees in Austria should go is not yet clear. A medium -sized three -digit number was spoken at the meeting. You can hear from around 400 affected people.
In the previous year, the sub -state group entered the fourth best result in its history. It is still an argument that the means of financing generous social plans. In corporate circles it is emphasized that the dismantling should be designed as socially compatible as possible. Which has a long tradition in the OMV.
Austria’s largest industrial company has prescribed a savings and efficiency increase program with the work title Revo, which should be completed by 2027. It not only contains cuts in the workforce, should be turned on many screws to improve efficiency and customer friendliness.
The OMV not only wants to drive down costs in Austria, where around 5,400 employees are employed and which is particularly affected by the high wages of the past few years. Up to 2,000 of the almost 23,000 jobs are put to the test worldwide, you can hear from the company.
Drop in profits
Regionally, the Romanian majority stake Petrom is likely to be affected by cuts. The refinery in Burghausen, Bavaria, as well as the Bratislava location, is also said to be part of the savings program.
Revo is not affected by Borealis. As is well known, the chemical daughter is merged with the daughter Borouge of the OMV major shareholder ADNOC (Abu Dhabi) into a chemical giant BGI.
The OMV is not an outlier in the industry. The oil and gas industry is currently employing cost programs and employee cuts worldwide. Above all, the fallen oil prices are pressing the profits, the entire industry earned significantly less in the first half of the year than in 2024. The OMV win collapsed by 55 percent to 384 million euros by the first half of the year.
The British oil company Shell, for example, wants to reduce 6500 jobs, the half-year profit dropped by almost a third. Chevron shortens 1,500 jobs and the US group conocophillips every fourth job.
Therefore, the discussions about an enlargement of the four-member board to five members are currently not at all well received in the OMV workforce. The criticism is “saving the employees and the board is being enlarged”.
Specifically, it is about the fact that a board of directors should only take care of BGI (Borouge Group International) in the future. The OMV came in February Daniela Vlad Listen, their agendas also took over Martijn von Koten, Responsible for fuel and the refineries. Which enlarged its area of responsibility. The question now is whether van Koten is only responsible for BGI and a new colleague takes on his previous tasks or whether a new BGI board will be brought on board.
The board debate is not only an unfavorable time because of the savings program. CEO Alfred Stern the company will be left in August 2026 at the latest. The Supervisory Board commissioned the headhunter Heidrick & Struggles to search for succession.
Ideal would be an Austrian who knows the company, my insider. Opportunities will be ex-Borealis boss Thomas Gangl attributed. His friendship with Rainer Seele, however, could be a minus point for the top manager. Soul Russia adventure cost the OMV 2.5 billion euros.
The former vice CEO could now come back into play Johann Pleininger, Currently head of the state oil company of Bahrain (Tatweer Petroleum). Pleininger was responsible for exploration & production in the OMV. His successor Barislav gas is pretty controversial. He cannot withstand a comparison with Pleininger in the team. In addition, he has made himself quite unpopular with his strictly German leadership style, it is rumored.
Speculators continue to speculate about the soul, which in the OMV, as reported. He could soon be a confidant Sultan Ahmed al Jaber (CEO of Adnoc, Minister of Industrial Minister of Abu Dhabi) land on a ticket from the Arabs on the supervisory board of the OMV.