Romania: OMV Petrom signs a three-year gas supply contract with Moldova

Romanian oil-and-gas group OMV Petrom signed a contract for three years to deliver gas to Moldova from the Black Sea offshore Neptun Deep project, Romania's Energy Ministry announced on Wednesday.

Neptun Deep, a joint venture between OMV Petrom, the Romanian state-owned Romgaz and OMV Petrom, is estimated to contain 100 billion cubic metres of recoverable natural gas and is considered one of Europe's largest gas deposits.

Neptun Deep, Romania's largest energy project since it finished its second nuclear reactor nearly two decades ago, is on track to deliver its initial gas by 2027.

OMV Petrom - which is owned by Austrian OMV in majority - will supply 15 terawatts of gas to Germany's Uniper under a 5-year agreement.

Romania's Energy Ministry said that the contract with Moldovan Energocom represented less than 1% estimated reserves of Neptun Deep.

The energy ministry stated that "this marks a new phase in consolidating regional security of energy and recovering Romania's strategic resource".

Neptun Deep is expected to double Romania's production of gas and turn it into a major net exporter at a moment when the EU is reducing its dependence on Russian gas.

OMV Petrom & Romgaz plan on selling the gas separately. However, under Romanian law, the government has a first-right preemptive to the gas produced by the project under specific conditions of security of supply.

Investors are concerned by the repeated statements made by George Simion (the hard-right eurosceptic candidate in Romania's presidential elections), who has said that the EU and NATO should buy back OMV Petrom's controlling stake. (Reporting and editing by Alan Charlish, Jan Harvey, and Luiza Ilie)

(source: Reuters)