OMV named Johann Pleininger, a company veteran, to head exploration and production at the Austrian oil and gas group, taking over from Jaap Huijskes.

OMV announced last September that Huijskes was planning to leave the company in the first half of 2016, well before his contract expires in September 2018, for solely "private reasons".

Pleininger, 53 and currently Senior Vice President CEE & Black Sea in OMV's Exploration & Production segment, will take over on Sept. 1, OMV said in a statement on Aug. 27. He first joined the company as a teenager in 1977.

"The OMV Supervisory Board is convinced that he will successfully lead the Upstream business, the decisive growth driver for OMV, and that he will steer us through the challenging times we now face," Chairman Peter Oswald said.

OMV has placed its bets on expensive but stable exploration projects in the North Sea as output in Yemen and Libya stalls. Yet CEO Rainer Seele is keen to maintain an upstream focus which he sees as key for longer term business prospects.