Orlen, Poland's leading oil refiner hopes to announce its first upstream project – searching and recovering crude oil – around the middle of next year, CEO Jacek Krawiec said in an interview. “The global crisis has somewhat meddled with our plans, and investments in upstream had to be postponed,” Mr Krawiec said. “I hope that around mid-2010 we will be able to announce such a project. I'm certain that by mid-2010 we will have real projects on the table. We take into consideration safe directions, like Europe, America or Africa.” Orlen has been promising to push into the upstream business for years, in order to compete with its CEE region rivals, such as MOL from Hungary and Austria-based OMV.