OMV

Brief History

OMV was formed to bring together the Austrian Government's holdings in the oil industry and it particular its refinery at Schwechat. Although Austria has for many years had a small level of oil production, OMV's activities are mainly downstream. At the end of the 1950s the state assumed ownership of various downstream assets that had been formerly owned by German interest, and then passed to the Russians. From 1955 the state-owned Martha chain of service stations carried the Aral brand, although there was also a small national chain using OROP. The latter acquired the PAM operation from its Dutch parent and introduced the Elan name around 1969.

By the late 1980s, OMV also owned a regional chain branded Stroh in Vienna and the East, and a majority stake in the TOTAL's Austrian filling stations. Following partial privatisation in 1987, OMV replaced Aral at the Martha sites (but Aral kept a reduced market presence until 2003). Over the next decade Elan and Total were slowly phased out in favour of OMV, which is now Austria's largest brand. OMV has moved into neighbouring markets including Slovenia, the Czech & Slovak republics, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and - by buying Merk & Co which formerly used the BP and Deltin brands - Germany. In 2002 it added 40 former DEA stations supplied by Martin, and in February 2003 it took over 313 former BP (or Aral) locations in Southern Germany, Hungary and Slovakia, as well as BP's share of the Bayernoil refinery. In April 2003 OMV bought the 141 outlets of the Avanti chain in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria and in late 2005 the 70 Aral sites in the Czech Republic. 2005 also saw the purchase of Romania's largest petrol retailer, Petrom. Most recently (2006), it has acquired 34% of the largest Turkish petrol retailer, PetrolOfisi.

Maps: OMV

The front (Österreich/Austria) and rear (Wien/Vienna) covers of this mid 1990s map of Austria are reversible. Like many modern sheet maps of the country, it is drawn by Freytag-Berndt u. Artaria and locates all OMV stations with a blue blob. The medium format road atlas shown top right dates from 1999, but is basically a stock Freytag-Berndt atlas with a different cover. (BP used the same underlying atlas.) OMV have since reissued this atlas with a different cover.

By 1997, Austrian petrol companies were looking for cheaper ways to brand maps. OMV came up with a novel solution - it included a complete set of seven Freytag & Berndt 1:200,000 sectional maps in a customised OMV card box. The set was sold at an advantageous price and included, as a bonus, a pocket format 102 page street atlas of Vienna in proper OMV covers.

This OMV atlas of Hungary is somewhat earlier, dating from 1991, about the time that it first started operating service stations in Eastern Europe. Although the front cover is in German, on the inside covers there are adverts for OMV service stations in both German (front) and Hungarian (rear). The atlas was assembled by Freytag-Berndt u. Artaria, but appears to use maps drawn by the large Hungarian firm Cartographia.

By 2001 (above centre right) OMV's Hungarian chain was large enough to publish its own sheet map of Hungary at the scale of 1:700,000, with a special map of Budapest, and a few years later it had moved to a slightly larger format map in card covers at the scale of 1:500,000 (above far right) using cartography by Freytag & Berndt.
2001 image courtesy Jon Roma; ca2005 courtesy Michal Okonek

OMV's Czech and Slovak subsidiaries have established an extensive map programme, mainly using cartography by the Czech firm Shocart. Typically maps are presented inside card covers, with one side showing a service station photo (as here on this 2003 map of Nemecko = Germany) and the reverse either a relief map of the country or a scenic photograph (as on this 2004 map of Prague and suburbs). OMV also sells spiral bound atlases of the Czech Republic (some versions with Slovakia).

OMV aims to be one of the top three retailers in the Balkans, and has been an early mover in to some of the more challenging markets. This atlas of Serbia dates from 2005 and has 56 pages, using cartography from the local firm of MagicMap, primarily at the unusual scale of 1:880,000. It includes maps of Belgrade. Image courtesy Michal Okonek The next page shows maps from Elan, Orop, Total (Rumwolf) and OMV Istrabenz. Please follow the links to a pages for maps from: Avanti Deltin PAM PetrolOfisi Petrom