Borouge Fusion and Neptun Deep: How OMV is replacing oil and gas with chemicals

And could surprise – at least on the stock market.

Despite lower production, a decline in earnings, a cautious outlook and a still ongoing search for a new CEO, the share in Vienna’s leading index ATX was one of the day’s winners.

Good mood

The shares rose by more than three percent by 3 p.m. in a weak market environment. Several factors are likely to have made investors happy: the prospect of a strong dividend of 4.4 euros per share, rising oil prices again and the planned mega-merger in the chemicals sector to form the Borouge Group.

The Group’s key earnings figures in 2025 were all below the values ​​of 2024 (see graphic). Nevertheless, Austria’s largest industrial group continues to make a billion-dollar profit and can pay a total dividend of 1.6 billion euros from the cash flow of 5.2 billion euros (minus four percent).

The core shareholders – ÖBAG, the holding company of the Republic of Austria with 31.5 percent, and ADNOC, the state oil company of Abu Dhabi with 24.9 percent – ​​will be happy about this. CEO Alfred Stern spoke of a “solid result in a difficult market environment”.

Cautious outlook

Things won’t necessarily get better if you follow Stern’s comments on the outlook for 2026. Aside from price and margin expectations, which only provide guidance to industry insiders, there was talk of subdued economic expectations, geopolitical uncertainties and consolidation in the chemicals market.

Especially in the chemicals division, OMV wants to get started soon with the Borouge Group, into which it is bringing in its subsidiary Borealis and will hold around 47 percent of the entire group (also 47 percent in Abu Dhabi, the rest in free float).

A fixed billion

It is reassuring that the Borouge Group has promised a minimum annual dividend of one billion US dollars to OMV from the start – until 2030 – no matter how good or bad business is going. The new chemical giant (worth: 60 billion dollars) can probably do this because co-owner ADNOC currently earns around 300 million dollars in the oil business – per day.

From OMV’s perspective, this minimum dividend stabilizes the group’s cash flow and helps finance further expansion. This year alone, investments in a wide range of projects amounting to more than three billion euros are planned.

Stern described the fact that production will fall below the 300,000 barrels per day mark in 2026 as temporary. The group’s production output is likely to increase again from 2027, when “Neptun Deep” delivers.

The OMV subsidiary Petrom and the state-owned Romgaz are working together on the huge gas production project in the Romanian part of the Black Sea. The gas field is located at a depth of around 2,000 meters and is expected to deliver quantities that will make Romania the largest gas producer in Europe.

Thanks to Neptun Deep, OMV is also sticking to its goal of producing 400,000 barrels a day again by 2030. Together, the partners are investing around four billion euros in the development.

Today OMV production consists of 50 percent oil and gas. By 2030, 60 percent should come from gas and only 40 percent from oil.