Posted By Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on February 4, 2025
(Reuters) - OMV faces impacts from U.S. tariffs in certain areas, though its exposure in North America is relatively low, CFO Reinhard Florey said on Tuesday, in a call following the Austrian oil and gas firm's results.
"However, this exposure includes activities that are in the USA itself and...this means that tariffs go nowhere there because they operate directly in the domestic market," he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump suspended his threat of steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Monday, agreeing to a 30-day pause, in return for concessions on border and crime enforcement with the two neighboring countries.
He, however, enforced a 10% tariff on trade with China, threatening to take similar measures against the European Union.
If tariffs are imposed on the EU, it could hit chemical products exported by OMV's subsidiary Borealis to the U.S., although these shipments are quite limited, Florey noted.
"In other words, it's more about seeing how tariffs fundamentally fuel the issue of inflation," he added, while noting that tariffs can increase prices through surcharges and hinder global trade.
"We want energy to remain affordable, we have to make sure that macroeconomically sensible solutions are found," Florey said. (This story has been refiled to add the dropped word 'says' in the headline)
(Reporting by Tristan Veyet and Isabel Demetz in Gdansk; Editing by Vijay Kishore)