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Energy & Environment
Romania Hasn’t Complied With EU Waste Management Rules, EC May Trigger Infringement
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Romania hasn’t managed to close all its substandard landfills by Thursday and the European Commission can trigger infringement procedures over defective waste management anytime. According to a statistic of the Environmental Guard, nearly 2,300 landfills in Romania were still substandard on July 1, just two weeks before the conformity deadline set by the European Commission. According to Silvian Ionescu, general commissioner of the Romanian Environmental Guard, the statistic, ...
Oil Co Sterling Frowns On Romanian Parliament's Inquiry Report
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Canadian oil exploration company Sterling Resources contests the conclusions of the report drawn up by a Committee of the Romanian Parliament as regards the Black Sea exploration contract sealed between the government and the company.On Monday, Sterling sent a letter to the Lower House speaker Roberta Anastase, contesting the conclusions of the report of the Committee of Industries and Services, an opinion previously notified to the President Traian Basescu, the Prime Minister Emil Boc and ...
Romanian Governemnt To Write Off RON1.1B Debts Of Heating Plants
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Romanian Government will write off 1.1 billion lei (EUR1=RON4.2397) worth of debts of 35 thermal power plants that are under the subordination of city halls, in a three month period at most, minister of Administration and Interior Dan Nica said Monday. "We will assist each city hall with a thermal plant under its subordination to ask for state aid for debts write-off. These are state debts as the commercial ones could not be written off. This could have been done since 2006," Nica ...
AVAS puts its Petromin shares to sale
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The State Assets Realization Authority (AVAS) has put to sale by open-cry tender as many as 15,743,901 shares accounting for 70.02 percent of SC CNM Petromin SA Constanta share capital for a reserve price of 14.956 million lei (more than 3.5 million euros), the institution announced.The tender will be held on Sept. 2 at AVAS headquarters; the reserve price is 0.95 lei a share (about 0.22 euros a share).Petromin has a share capital worth 56.2 million lei (roughly 13.2 million euros) and it is ...
Petrom, five years since privatization
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Privatization of the largest Romanian company, Petrom, was sealed exactly five years ago, with the Austrian OMV group paying 668.8 million euros for 33.34 percent of the shares.The capital increased by further 800 million euros, for a company that was to bring in dividends worth 400 million euros so far, reads the daily Ziarul financiar.For five years, OMV was not entitled to sell any of the company's basic assets and the current CEO of the company Mariana Gheorghe said this topic ...
Zsolt Szalay: Gasoline consumption fell 10% in H1
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Managing director of MOL Romania, Zsolt Szalay said first-half gasoline consumption among corporate clients fell by more than 10%, while the consumption among individual clients fell by less than 10% year-on-year. “The primary cause of these slumps is the economic crisis. The entire market is affected. For 2009, we had expected to break-even. Looking past the recession, the vacation season could revive the market in the second half”, said Zsolt Szalay. MOL Romania and National Union of Road ...
EIB ready to help finance Nabucco pipeline
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The European Investment Bank is ready to help finance the 7.9 billion euro Nabucco pipeline and to look closely at the concept of creating a single gas purchaser to ensure the project is viable, the bank said on 23 July."When the project actually starts, we would be ready to fund the project and I think certainly our funding will be called upon to do that," Christopher Hurst, director for energy and transport at the European Investment Bank (EIB), said on the sidelines of an energy and ...
EU Swedish presidency to support Nabucco project during its mandate
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Nabucco energy project, which is to be allocated 200 million euros from the EU budget (an aspect that is also mentioned in the conclusions of the European Council in June), will also be supported by the Swedish presidency of the European Union (EU) during its mandate. The announcement was made on this Monday at the end of the meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) in Brussels by Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Cristian Diaconescu. Vasile Puscas, head ...
Commission sets efficiency standards for fridges, TVs
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The European Commission last week (22 July) adopted four new eco-design regulations to make industrial motors, water circulators, televisions, refrigerators and freezers more energy efficient. The regulations are implementation measures under the EU ecodesign directive, which allows the Commission to set minimum efficiency standards for energy-using products. The EU executive estimates that the new measures will save about 190 TWh annually by 2020, equalling the combined yearly electricity ...
Oltchim eyes 62 mln eur loan to buy Petrom assets
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Romanian chemical plant Oltchim OLTC.BX said on Monday it has approved plans to borrow 62 million euros ($88 million) to buy petrochemical assets owned by top oil and gas group Petrom SNPP.BX. "We approved contracting ... a loan worth 62 million euros with a 6-year maturity, which will be used to buy the petrochemical assets of Petrom's Arpechim Pitesti (refinery) ... and for working capital," Oltchim said in a statement. About 80 percent of the loan, which was approved in a general ...
Demand for natural gas appraised at 8.428m MWh for August
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Overall demand for natural gas for August is appraised at 8.428 million MWh and it should be ensured from the domestic production in a ratio of 85.03 percent and 14.97 percent from import, according to the report drawn up by Transgaz and sent to the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE).Demand from captive market is appraised at 1.22 million MWh, of which 635,637 MWh for household consumers. Demand from market of eligible consumers is forecast at 2.946 million MWh and the market ...
The copper exploitation in Rosia Poieni, close to an ecological disaster
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The area neighbouring the copper exploitation from Rosia Poieni is under the threat of an ecological disaster. An official from Alba (West Romania), Stefan Bardan, brought in the Government's attention the dangerous situation from the copper quarry. "The situation is still stable as we speak, but it is an ecological bomb", Bardan told the government on July 29. "I also informed the Interior Minister, the Economy Minister and the Environment Minister on the copper exploitation in Roais ...
Big oil eyes algae to solve biofuel problems
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Oil giants such as Shell and ExxonMobil are pouring millions of research funding into algae in the hope that the technology can solve environmental problems associated with intensive crop cultivation for biofuels. Raffaello Garofalo, executive director of the European Algae Biomass Association (EABA), outlines the potential and challenges of algae in an interview with EurActiv. With ethanol and biodiesel coming under fire for driving up food prices and putting biodiversity at risk, the EU ...
Romanian Govt To Write Off RON1.1B Debts Of Heating Plants
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Romanian Government will write off 1.1 billion lei (EUR1=RON4.2397) worth of debts of 35 thermal power plants that are under the subordination of city halls, in a three month period at most, minister of Administration and Interior Dan Nica said Monday."We will assist each city hall with a thermal plant under its subordination to ask for state aid for debts write-off. These are state debts as the commercial ones could not be written off. This could have been done since 2006," Nica ...
Environment Minister: We have 80 pc chances not to be penalized for non-conform landfills
Thursday, July 23, 2009
There is an 80 percent chance not to be penalized by the European Commission (EC) with 200,000 euros per day in connection with the landfills clearing, announced Environment Minister Nicolae Nemirschi .'I do not know if we will have to pay 200,000 euros per day, the talked about amount, but from my point of view there is an 80 pc chance to escape that penalty. I think I can convince the local authorities to solve the issue in maximum two months', Environment Minister gave ...
CEN Craiova, after the profit fell 17-fold: Things will be better
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The leader of traders and the sixth-largest local electricity producer, the state-owned Complexul Energetic (CEN) Craiova, estimates to have registered a net profit worth RON 1 million (€0.23 mln) in the first half of 2009, 17 times lower than the RON 17 mln (€4.6 mln) level posted in H1 2008, due to a decline in energy demand, generated by the crisis. “I do not believe that the second half of 2009 can be worse than the first. Our profit plunged 17 times because we cut production ...
Moeller Electric: A 10% drop is an optimistic estimate
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The local Moeller Electric company, part of the U.S. Eaton corporation, with sales worth $15.4 billion (some €10.9 bln, at a $0.7€1 exchange rate) in 2008, posted a drop of some 10 percent in net sales in the first six months of this year and forecasts some RON 125 mln (€29.7 mln) in business this year. Furthermore, the company estimates that net profit will fall by over one tenth, Moeller Electric’s General Manager, Iordan Mincă, told Business Standard. “Our initial estimates were ...
Turceni borrows €170 mln from EBRD for 10 years
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Romania’s largest thermo-energy plant, the state-owned Complexul Energetic (CE) Turceni, has scheduled for today the signing of a loan contract, worth €170 million, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for 10 years, with three years period of grace, company officials told Business Standard. The loan is one of the largest granted to a local company in this time of crisis. “Of the €300 million that we were to take out from EBRD for the modernization of the 3 ...
Petrom: Tough action needed for economic rebound
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The government must take hard, unpopular measures to help the economy get back of track. It would be good if it chose two, maximum three industries such as energy, agriculture, and construction, to focus on, support them, and covert them into the engines of Romania’s future growth, the Chief Executive Officer of Petrom, Romania’s largest company, Mariana Gheorghe, told Business Standard.The official said she is expecting an eight percent drop in the Romanian economy this year, and that ...
LukOil and MOL expect higher fuel consumption, Petrom – on the contrary
Thursday, July 23, 2009
When talking about fuel consumption, main players on the local oil market seem to operate each in its own economy, considering the differences between registered figures and forecasts.Fuel consumption on the corporate segment fell by more than 10 percent in this year’s first half, the President of the MOL Romania oil company, the local subsidiary of the Hungarian oil and gas group and the fourth local retailer, Zsolt Szalay, said yesterday.He added that fuel consumption on the ...