Romania Gets Opportunity to Do Without Russian Gas

Romania began to build a gas pipeline to new gas fields in the Black Sea.

Black Sea Oil & Gas, which belongs to the American investment fund Carlyle Group, has begun construction of a 126-kilometer gas pipeline to the Black Sea shallow block of Midia. The Anna and Doina fields with reserves of 10 billion cubic meters are located there, and they are planning to start production on them next year.

Romanian Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said that the project will become extremely important for the country, since production will begin at the first offshore gas field in Romania.

It is planned that the production capacity at the $ 400 million project will be up to 1 billion cubic meters per year and it will be able to cover 10% of gas consumption in Romania. And this is exactly the volume that the country imports – from Russia. Last year, Gazprom supplied 994 million cubic meters to the country.

The development of the deep-water block Neptune, which is being developed by OMV Petrom and Exxon Mobil, looks more attractive for Romania. According to unofficial estimates, the reserves of its fields reach 200 billion cubic meters, and the annual production can reach 6 billion cubic meters. 

However, in the summer, OMV Petrom announced again that it was postponing its final investment decision on the project. 

Investors expect the Romanian authorities to reverse the tax changes they have adopted in recent years. For example, energy companies are not happy with the fact that they are obliged to sell at least half of the produced gas within Romania and pay a 2% turnover tax.