Government extends offshore agreements with ExxonMobil and OMV Petrom to 2045

Anca Alexe 31/01/2019 | 08:13

The Romanian government passed a Decision to extend to 2045 the agreement it has with ExxonMobil and OMV Petrom on the Neptun Deep natural gas perimeter in the Black Sea, Mediafax reports.

The concession agreement for the exploration, development and exploitation of the XIX Neptun perimeter was initially approved in 2000 through a Government Decision and was originally valid until 2030. Wednesday’s act extended the agreement by another 15 years.

The document was initially signed by French company Elf Aquitane and Petrom, which was still owned fully by the state at the time. ExxonMobile took over the French company’s share in 2008 and OMV became the main shareholder of Petrom.

The government motivated its decision by saying that “the title holders exploited the XIX Neptun perimeter in a responsible manner” and the investments they made exceeded the initial estimations.

Furthermore, the Executive wrote that offshore development needs “massive investments in sophisticated technologies” and that total cost could reach billions of dollars, therefore the time period needs to be “sufficient” to create infrastructure and production capacity as well as to be able to exploit the potential resources.