Romania Sees an Opening to Become an Energy Power in Europe

“We will supply energy security for the neighborhood,” Virgil-Daniel Popescu, Romania’s energy minister, said in an interview after lawmakers passed legislation designed to encourage investment in gas production.

Yet working in Romania will probably prove to be a challenge for companies from the United States and other Western countries. The government has a reputation for greeting outside investors with cumbersome taxes and heavy-handed regulations. These policies, perhaps a result of fears that Romanian consumers would end up paying too much as energy giants took home hefty profits, have probably driven outside companies away.

Last month, for example, Exxon Mobil sold its 50 percent stake in Neptun Deep, a Black Sea project that had been heralded as potentially the largest new natural gas production field in the European Union. Exxon’s brief announcement said the company wanted to focus on projects with “a low cost of supply.” Romania’s tax regime is considered Europe’s toughest.

Romania’s petroleum industry is one of the world’s oldest, dating to the drilling of wells as far as back the 1860s and centered on the vibrant hub of Ploiesti, about 35 miles north of Bucharest. While the venerable oil fields are on the wane, industry executives say drilling in the Black Sea could produce enough natural gas to turn Romania, now a modest importer, into the largest producer in the European Union.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/business/romania-energy-nuclear-power-natural-gas.html