“These people have put their own financial interests above any morality,” he told “profil”. The major dependency on Russian gas, as is currently the case, should not have been there.
“We were also on a promising path. In 2012 we had the largest gas find in the history of OMV in the Black Sea off Romania,” he cites the “Neptun” project as an example. “My assumption was that we would be able to deliver around three billion cubic meters of gas to Austria with Neptun in the future. That would have covered around a third of the annual requirement,” calculates Roiss.
“There was a lot of lobbying”
But according to him, things turned out differently. “OMV should be the basis for deepening mutual economic relations between Austria and Russia. The OMV group should serve as a kind of pacesetter. There was a lot of lobbying,” says Roiss.
The then state holding company ÖIAG (now ÖBAG) was responsible for the state’s 31.5 percent stake in OMV. When asked about Siegfried Wolf, the chairman of the ÖIAG supervisory board at the time, who had excellent contacts in Russia, Roiss said to “profil”: “Please don’t expect me to comment on this gentleman.” The same applies to the Russian head of state Vladimir Putin.
Wolf announced legal action
Wolf immediately responded to Roiss’ statements and announced legal action. He will comment on all matters “in particular on Mr. Roiss’s personal and dishonorable revenge campaign at the right time”.
“Only the OMV Executive Board decided on the activities of OMV and had to have these decisions made by its own Supervisory Board, to which I have never belonged. I have to make decisions about which gas or other energy sources OMV develops or where OMV comes from their gas or oil has never been directly or indirectly influenced,” Wolf said in a press release.
“Small Austro-Oligarchs”
The owner representative for Austria’s interests in the Viennese oil and chemical company is the respective finance minister. Between 2014 and the end of 2017, that was Hans Jörg Schelling (ÖVP), who, according to “profil”, had a consulting contract with the Russian gas company Gazprom after leaving politics. Roiss: “This is a general problem that has become apparent over the past five or six years – the close interlocking of politics and business. We no longer only have oligarchs from the East, we have long had small Austro-oligarchs as well. “
From 2011 to 2015, Roiss headed the state-owned, listed group. His departure was not entirely voluntary, and he now invests in start-ups.
Source: Nachrichten
