The warning of the vice-president of the European Commission, Franz Timmermans, that this winter we should expect “social conflicts due to the increase in energy prices”, should make you think. But our decision makers reassure us by saying “we will be energy independent”. We hear this speech not for the first time. After the increase in energy prices in Romania a year ago, the former prime minister made the same statements, and then I amended the narrative. The situation in the region has changed, and the realities of Romania’s energy industry have worsened over the past year.

Obviously, a member state of the European Union cannot become “independent” from an energy point of view, although Romania is lucky because it has energy reserves: a little oil, a little more gas and more coal. Romania is in the center of “Russian energy ticks”, which means that all the surrounding countries are currently in acute energy poverty.

Fuel for transport

Gasoline and diesel fuel are mainly obtained from imported oil, which is about 70%, the rest comes from production facilities owned by OMV. Major imports are carried out by the owners of refineries: Rompetrol – KazMunaigaz, Petrom – OMV and LukOil. Distribution belongs to: Petrom – OMV, Rompetrol – KazMunaigaz, LukOil, Gazprom, MOL and SOCAR. All these societies belong to other states, which are not always our friends.

We are not and cannot be independent!

Natural gas

As we know: Russian gas imports have increased over the last three years from 5% to almost 30%, and this is because of us, because legislation has pushed investors away from production, and the National Agency of Mineral Resources (NARM) has blocked the granting of licenses for exploration and development.

If you rely on the fact that the resources of the Black Sea will bring us independence, then you are mistaken. While we produce a little more than 9 billion cubic meters per year (million cubic meters per year) and consume more than 11.3, and in years with longer periods of low temperatures more than 12, the shallow reserves of oil and gas in the Black Sea will not exceed 1 million cubic meters / year.

As for the deep reserves, in order to gain access, they need at least 4 years to build the infrastructure of pipelines, technology and installations that two companies (OMV and Romgaz) have to lease, and about 5 billion dollars to invest. But no investment decision was made. Adding the fact that the Neptune Deep area is close to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the decision will be difficult, and perhaps the amount of funds will be higher.

Relations with neighboring countries do not provide independence, but interdependence, if not dependence. Who are we related to? With Hungary and Bulgaria, which has no reserves and which until a few months ago was 100% dependent on Russian gas. We also have Ukraine, but that is not discussed yet.

The decision-makers wanted to brag about the completion of the interconnector between Greece and Bulgaria. The capacity of the new gas pipeline is 3 billion cubic meters per year. Bulgaria needs 3.4 billion cubic meters per year. It is possible that not a single molecule of gas coming from Azerbaijan or from the Alexandropoulis terminal (from which Romgaz exited last year) will reach Romania. Read the entire article on Contributors.ro