Over the past two years, OMV has drilled 45 wells in Austria and reached the highest level of Austrian production in 20 years. It said it was aiming to attain a global annual production rate of around 160,000 boe/d by 2008, achieved by tripling its international production, while maintaining Austrian output at a constant level.

The Erdpress 1 well on the Steinberg fault zone is seven kilometres away from the Matzen field, Europe's biggest onshore oilfield. Exploration drilling has identified resources of around 4.5 million barrel oil equivalent (boe).

After about six months of intensive preparatory work, producible oil and natural gas accumulations were found in 12 sandstone horizons while drilling to a depth of 2,926 metres. Taking current mean estimates, resources of about 500.000 tons of oil and 200 million cubic metres of gas were discovered. In addition to these resources a further 3 million boe could possibly be added by appraisal drilling.