Petrom, the largest Romanian company in terms of turnover, has bought petroleum products worth over one billion euros from the branches of its Austrian-based majority shareholder, OMV, in order to resell them on the market.
The amount accounts for around one quarter of Petrom's turnover and is twice as high compared with the acquisitions made from its majority shareholder in the previous year.
Petrom has sold more and more of its parent company's (OMV) output over the last two years, while its own production of petroleum products has decreased.
The financial statements presented by Petrom over the last couple of years show that Romania's largest company has sold more and more "goods", while in the turnover the share of "production sold" has almost constantly dwindled.
Contacted by ZF earlier this week concerning the transactions carried out with OMV, Petrom officials did not provide any comment until yesterday.
The two components of Petrom's turnover (production and commodities) accounted for equal shares in the second half of last year, whereas production accounted for around two thirds of the petroleum company's business at the beginning of 2005.
Most of the petroleum products purchased by Petrom last year were actually bought from OMV Supply & Trading AG (OMV's trader registered in Switzerland). According to Petrom's consolidated financial statements, the company bought 3.06 billion RON (some 900 million euro) worth of products from this OMV branch.
Romania's imports from Switzerland reached 421 million euros last year, according to the National Statistics Institute, so it is more than likely that the petroleum products came from another country.
Petrom's other major suppliers include OMV Refining & Marketing, with 206 million RON (some 60 million euros) and OMV International Services, with 86 million RON (some 25 million euros). The audit report of Deloitte, which includes Petrom's consolidated financial statements does not state whether its auditors checked the prices for the completed transactions.
In 2005, Petrom's acquisitions from other affiliated companies amounted to 1.85 billion RON (520 million euros), with OMV Supply & Trading accounting for the majority - 1.71 billion RON (480 million euros).
As regards sales to companies part of the OMV group, Petrom sold a value of almost 500 million RON (140 million euros) to affiliated companies. The most important transactions were those involving local companies in which Petrom holds stake such as Petrom Aviation (48 million euros), Shell Gas Romania (23 million euros) and Air Total Romania.
The information concerning Petrom's acquisition contracts with OMV branches is available in Petrom's consolidated financial statements, drafted in accordance with the international accounting standards (IAS), which stipulate that such transactions must be shown separately.
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