By Giulia Petroni and Ian Walker


OMV AG on Thursday reported a 43% fall in fourth quarter net profit, despite sales rising on the back of higher market prices.

The Austrian oil-and-gas company reported a net profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 of 308 million euros ($338.5 million) from EUR538 million in the year earlier period. On an adjusted basis, net profit was EUR700 million compared with EUR1.02 billion and a consensus of EUR727 million taken from the company's website.

Sales increased to EUR14.51 billion in the quarter from EUR13.35 billion .

OMV said total that exploration and development production fell 106,000 barrels of oil a day to 385,000 boe/d, mainly due to the change in the consolidation method of Russian operations.

The company said that it expects the average Brent crude oil price to be above $80 a barrel this year compared with $101 in 2022 and for the average realized gas price to be around EUR35 per megawatt hour compared with EUR54/MWh in 2022.

The company proposed a dividend of EUR2.80 a share, compared with EUR2.30 the previous year and a special dividend of EUR2.25.


Write to Giulia Petroni at giulia.petroni@wsj.com and Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-02-23 0144ET