Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae-Ionel Ciucă last Friday, with the other two leaders of the ruling coalition, Marcel Ciolacu and Kelemen Hunor, signed the Offshore Law, aimed at ensuring stability and legislative predictability for oil and gas companies wanting to invest in the Romanian offshore oil and gas sector.
Ciucă said that the much-awaited law, once effective, will "ensure stability and legislative predictability for investors, offshore and onshore investments will be unblocked, and natural gas resources at the Black Sea will be exploited, and deep onshore resources in Buzau county will start to be exploited."
The Prime Minister said that the novelty brought by the law pertains to the competitive fiscal regime under which the state can benefit from 60 percent of revenues and the investors of 40 percent of revenues.
"As such, through this law, as of this year, the company Black Sea Oil &Gas will deliver for the first time gas, I think, no later than mid-year; operating a perimeter from where it will provide about one billion cubic meters per year," Ciucă said.
He said that exploitation in the Neptun Deep offshore area would start at the earliest at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027.
"At the same time, regarding the onshore, at Caragele, in Buzau county, deep gas exploitation will begin in early 2024. Basically, through this legislative project, as aforementioned, we provide the necessary framework so that natural gas operations can ensure, on the one hand, independence from Russian gas, and, on the other hand, the necessary amount of gas, and in this time frame, 2022-2027, we can think about the development of the chemical industry that can use these natural gas resources," he said.
"We know very well that we are in a time when there is a great need for fertilizers, fertilizers for agriculture. Due to the lack of gas quantities, the Azomureș plant could not start production so far. The arguments to ensure our growth and independence in terms of ensuring gas resources and production are as obvious as possible. Moreover, a sufficient amount of safe gas will lead to lower prices for Romanian citizens, because in the end, we take all these steps to ensure stability and balance for the normal life of our citizens," the Prime Minister said.