Romania is continuing negotiations with American oil and gas groups ExxonMobil and Austrian OMV to speed up the gas exploration of the Neptune Black Sea offshore platform, Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă told Magyar Nemzet.
Dăncilă said the discussions were centered around ExxonMobil’s issues with current Romanian legislation about exploration. “ExxonMobil’s dissatisfaction concerns the offshore bill, a piece of legislation already approved by the Romanian Parliament”, Dăncilă said.
Romania has given the ExxonMobil-OMV consortium exploration rights for the Neptun offshore platform (with reserves estimated at between 42 and 84 billion cubic meters of natural gas) beginning with 2024. Senate President Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu told Magyar Nemzet they would like to speed up the process.
Last December Romania passed an offshore law that requires companies to sell at least half of the amount of gas in Romania and has also increased mining fees. In its most recent quarterly report published earlier this month OMV wrote that “current Romanian legislation prevents a several billion dollars business decision”.
Title image: Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă
