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"We have said we are not happy for this deal because we want to
have diversified supplies for gas to Europe," Energy Minister
Terje Soeviknes said in an interview.
"That is important for the Europeans, to know that they have
Norway as a stable producer. With Gazprom at the shelf, some
people might question that."
Non-EU Norway is Europe's second-largest gas supplier after
Russia.
Under a deal agreed in late 2016, OMV offered to swap a
38.5-percent stake in its Norwegian unit for a 25-percent stake
in a section of Gazprom's Urengoy gas field.
OMV Chief Executive Rainer Seele said in March he expected to
close the deal by the end of 2018 as the company looks to cut
costs and secure gas reserves.
"We have told OMV that we are not happy for it. But we have said
that, if there is an application, we will of course handle it,"
Soeviknes said, adding that an application had not yet been
submitted.
A spokesman for OMV said talks with Gazprom were still under way
and that the company remained confident that it could close the
deal by the end of the year.
Gazprom was not available for immediate comment.
When OMV failed to file documents to the Norwegian oil and
energy ministry regarding the Gazprom deal in the summer of
2017, the company cited Norwegian parliamentary elections in
September as the reason for the delay.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg and her government won re-election
and Soeviknes continued as oil minister.
Austria's OMV has stakes in more than 30 licences on the
Norwegian continental shelf, including in the producing fields
Gullfaks, Gudrun and Edvard Grieg, as well as the Arctic Aaasta
Hansteen gas field which is expected to start production at the
end of 2018.
Its Wisting oil discovery in the Barents Sea could start
production in 2024-2025.
Norway's majority state-owned Equinor <EQNR.OL>, formerly known
as Statoil, is Gazprom's main competitor in Western Europe.
(Additional reporting by Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich in Vienna
and Oksana Kobzeva in Moscow; editing by Gwladys Fouche and
Jason Neely)
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