The demand for fuel in Southeast Europe (SEE) will continue to increase in the next years regardless of the world financial crisis and its negative effects on the economies in the region, which are expected to hit the consumption, informs dnevnik.bg.
This forecast was made in London by the Austrian oil and gas corporation OMV on the annual meeting of the leadership of the company with media representative from Europe.
The demand for oil products in SEE will jumps with nearly 20% to 27.7 million tones for the period 2007-2013, shows data from the corporation. In Bulgaria the growth will be 12%, with one percent less that it is expected to be on the significantly bigger Romanian market. The region is is expected to be the most attractive for the oil companies in Europe at the background of the stagnation, which is taking place on the developed markets of the continent and the slow down in Central Europe.
The fuel demand in Germany, Austria and the Central European states is expected to increase with 5%.
The demand of the other developing markets on which OMV operates (Turkey, Kazakhstan and others) is expected to rise with 15%, which is under the forecast growth fro SEE. In this way the markets in Southeast Europe will become the main engines and centers for growth of the business of the petrol companies.
“OMV is re-directing from the developed Western markets to the growing SEE markets and Turkey”, the OMV executive director Wolfgang Rutenstoffer pointed out one of the main points of the company's strategy. “In the current situation of slowing down of the growth of the world economy we are happy when we see how our business in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and the other countries in Southeast Europe is developing”, said also Rutenstoffer. In Romania, for example, a double digit growth in percents in the oil products consumption has been registered since the beginning of 2008.
The OMV leadership however warned that there was no way the threat of recession in Europe not to reflect the region. Thus the company expects a slower growth in the fuel sales in the next months.

by Olga Yoncheva