„Aktionäre unterstützen MOL’s strategischen Ansatz“

MOL Plc. held its Annual General Meeting on 28th April, 2011. The shareholders present accepted the Board of Directors’ report for 2010 and approved MOL Plc.’s Annual Report, prepared in accordance with the Hungarian Accounting Act as well as MOL Group’s consolidated financial statements, prepared in accordance with IFRS.

The General Assembly listened to and accepted, by a large majority, the Board’s report for the fiscal year in which signs of recovery were already to be seen. MOL continuously orientates its operations to meet conditions in the external environment and has become more international, more efficient and more Upstream-driven in recent years.

In 2010, approximately half the Group’s EBITDA was generated outside Hungary, the share of international operations further increasing significantly and MOL expects this trend to continue in the coming years. The Upstream division’s contribution to Group EBITDA has grown significantly over the last few years, achieving almost two third in 2010 and has became a strong growth pillar of the Group. Downstream integration continued in order to reinforce MOL’s strong position in the region.

MOL remained committed to maintaining its financial stability in 2010. Disciplined CAPEX spending was financed entirely through operating cash flow while its net debt position decreased, resulting in an improved gearing ratio of 31.3% by the end of December 2010.

In its Annual Report, MOL management stressed that the Group, besides maintaining its financial stability, continued to implement key development projects, thereby establishing an unbeatable position in each business division, ready for the global upturn. Investment focused on growth-driven projects such as the Syrian and Adriatic off-shore developments in Upstream, modernisation of the Rijeka refinery in Downstream and Hungarian-Croatian cross-border pipeline construction in Gas & Power.

With regard to Upstream, key field development projects have already turned to production, whereas further parts of the portfolio will include several field development and exploration projects in Russia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in the mid-term. These large-scale projects and CEE Upstream activities offer good investment possibilities and are crucially important to MOL’s strategic objectives - increasing its reserve base and creating the basis for further production growth beyond 2013.

Regarding its Downstream business, MOL Group’s main goal is to reinforce its very strong regional stronghold by focusing on market-driven growth and efficiency improvements thus exploiting the gradually improving environment. The Group is now focusing on benefitting further from valuable synergies throughout the whole value chain, elevating the Rijeka refinery to the level of MOL’s other key refineries by continuing the Croatian refinery modernisation programme and by increasing the overall efficiency of the Downstream portfolio.

2010 was also a milestone year with regard to MOL Group’s Sustainable Development performance. In September, MOL Group became the only Central & East European corporation to be listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. According to this most prestigious sustainability assessment, MOL was placed among the top 6% of all oil and gas producers in the world.

MOL is firmly committed to maintaining its strong financial position and intends to finance its investment plan fully from operating cash flow. In line with MOL’s conservative balance sheet approach and to exploit its organic growth potential, the Board of Directors recommended to the Annual General Meeting that the Group not pay a dividend on the 2010 results. The shareholders supported the Board of Directors’ proposal.

The assembly also took decisions in the area of personnel: the resignation of MOL Board member Mr. György Mosonyi was accepted and in his place Mr. Oszkár Világi was elected for a five year period. The Board of Directors acknowledged this decision by György Mosonyi and highly appreciated the outstanding contribution he has made in the past 12 years which significantly helped MOL to become a significant international company. The Board of Directors also asked him to continue supporting the Group with his experience and industry knowledge in non-executive positions in the future.

The resignation of MOL Supervisory Board member, Dr. Mihály Kupa, was accepted and in his place Mr. György Mosonyi was elected for a five year period, while Dr. Sándor Puskás was elected as employee representative on the Supervisory Board until 11 October 2012.

After the Annual General Meeting, Zsolt Hernádi, MOL Chairman & CEO stated:  “The company’s main goals for the forthcoming years are to maximise the value of our existing portfolio which offers an excellent base for further growth and to affirm of our role in the region. In the 2011-2013 period, MOL aims to increase the company’s investments in its key business units in such a way that the financing of targeted CAPEX spending is fully derived from operating cash flow and to focus on high-return projects in its two key business divisions, Upstream and Downstream. In addition, MOL will, of course, continuously monitor the macro environment and be ready to commence further growth projects, depending on cash flow generation”.