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Selischi, OMV Petrom: Romania did not import gas in the first four months
Romania covered in the first four months the gas quantity from domestic production, so that it was not necessary to import from Russia, stated Gabriel Selischi, member of the Board responsible for Upstream with OMV Petrom.
The local production of gas is ensured, mostly, by Romgaz and OMV Petrom.
‘During the last year, in Petrom and together with the colleagues from Romgaz we supported the cause of the oil and gas production stability in Romania. We notice now that this objective is very close to be attained. As regards Petrom, we managed that two years in a row to increase the production. So, in 2013, for the first time after many years of decrease, we increased the production and we repeated this performance in 2014 as well. We notice that in the first four monthsof the year, Romania covered its necessity, so that we didn’t need to import gas from Russia. This shows that we have a stable production as regards gas and oil. It is necessary to invest and to have the respective legislation’.Selischi said.
According to him, the Romanian system is vulnerable at each significant growth of the demand in natural gas.
At present, the annual gas consumption of Romania is 10-11 billion cubic metres annually, out of which imports are approximately 400 million cubic metres. By comparison, before the crisis, in 2007 the consumption was 17 – 18 billion cubic metres, out of which the imports were almost 6 billion cubic metres.
According to the commitments taken by the Romanian state to IMF and EU, the market of household consumers in Romania must be deregulated totally until 2018, the moment when the gas prices in the domestic production must reach the convergence with the market.
The Council of foreign investors announced on Tuesday in a press conference, that foreign investors who operate in the energy sector invested over 22 billion euro in Romania starting with 2002 until now, ‘the sum which contributed to the stability of a sector which had been underfinanced’.
The government estimated that, as a whole, the energy sector needs an investment effort of 70 – 100 billion euro until 2035.
‘The energy sector goes through unprecedented transformation. The changes which took place at European level, the recent legislative amendments on a national level which had a significant impact on the renewable sources of energy, the discovery of new gas resources, the perspective of a new stage of deregulation of the energy markets, the necessity to observe the EU objectives in the domain of environment as well as the energy strategy will have a strong impact on the way of working of the energy markets in the following years. This transformation must be supported in the next decade through significant investment in the new energy assets’ the officials of the Council of Foreign Investors say.
At the same time, the companies in the energy sector where foreign investors play an important role contributed in 2014 to the state budget with approximately 3 billion euro from the VAT collection, income tax, excises, payments of the employees.
In his turn, Eric Stab, vice-chairman FIC and Coordinator of the working group for energy, Chairman & CEO, GDF Suez Energy Romania considers that the decline of the gas production represents a major challenge and at the same time it is difficult to anticipate how the investment will be in the energy sector over the next five years, as this aspect depends on several factors. According to Stab, it is necessary that energy companies invest in transport capacities, as well as in energy efficiency, where Romania has a gap by comparison to other EU member states.
Therman grids represent another domain where investment is necessary, Stab says.
Moreover, the council of Foreign investors showed the necessity to promote investments in the energy sector and showed legislative challenges and regulation challenges which face this industry to draw supplementary investment, necessary for the modernisation of this sector’ essential for the Romanian economy’.
The council of foreign investors is the association of the most important foreign investors in Romania. CIS started its activity in 1997 and has 117 commercial companies whose investment in Romania represents approximately two thirds of the total of foreign direct investment starting with 1990 to the present.