OMV Petrom negotiating regional deals for Black Sea gas; Export tender for Hungary lost

Ovidiu Posirca 21/02/2018 | 17:31

Oil major OMV Petrom is exploring the region to sign export deals for the gas that will be extracted from the Black Sea as the company estimates that the demand on the Romanian market might not be enough to cover the supply.

“Without an increase of demand in Romania, we will have to look for sale options on other markets. Our objective is the region close to Romania, where we can have the best yield for any kind of sale, not just for gas,” said Marian Gheorghe, the CEO of OMV Petrom, in a press conference.

The executive said that the company did not close any contract to date and suggested that negotiations depend of the existence of interconnection capacities between Romania and the export markets.

OMV Petrom is doing offshore exploration in a joint venture with ExxonMobil. However, the two companies will have separate negotiations for the sale of gas.

Lacramioara Diaconu, who is charge of OMV Petrom’s gas operations, said that the company is analyzing other transport routes towards Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria and Turkey. However, the transport infrastructure has to be built in order to take the gas from the Black Sea to these countries. State-owned gas transport network operator Transgaz has to make these investments.

Meanwhile, Gheorghe said that OMV Petrom lost the tender to transport gas on the Arad-Szeged. The export contract to Hungary amounted to 4 billion cubic meters of gas.

” It’s not public who won, but we read in the news that there are three firms from Hungary,” said the CEO.

Hungarian news agency MTI reported on February 5 that several companies from Hungary reserved the yearly gas pipe capacity of 4.4 bcm. The Hungarian minister of foreign affairs, Peter Szijjarto, said this deal will help the country cut its reliance on Russian gas by tapping the new source in the Black Sea.

The minister said that Romania will build gas compression stations that will support the gradual export from 1.75 bcm in 2020 to 4.4 bcm by 2022.

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