The Russians want to buy the stake of the Austrians in OMV Petrom

The Austrians of OMV are negotiating with Russia the sale of the shares which they own in "OMV Petrom" - over 51% of the share capital - said engineer Mihai Macsim, the general manager of the Romanian Russian Chamber of Commerce and Trade (CCIRR): "It seems that the Austrians of OMV are negotiating with the Russians to sell them their stake in Romania. The Romanians are pushing the Austrians to sell their stake in OMV and the only ones which came up with a consistent bid were the Russians".

In the summer of 2004, "OMV Aktiengesellschaft Wien AUT" bought over half of the shares of the National Oil Company (SNP) "Petrom", in exchange for about 1.5 billion Euros. According to information on the website of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE), on June 30 2011, OMV owned 51.0105% of the shares of the oil company, the Ministry of the Economy - 20.6389%, the Proprietatea Fund - 20.1100%, the rest of the 8.2406% of din capital belonging to other shareholder. This category includes Russian giant, "Gazprom", according to Mr. Macsim.

"SNP Petrom" Bucharest was created by the Emergency Ordinance of the Romanian government and began operating as a company on November 1st, 2007.

In the beginning the list of bidders for "Petrom" included 15 corporations: Alon Inc. (SUA), PKN Orlen (Poland), Hellenic Petroleum (Greece), MOL (Hungary), Occidental Oil and Gas Holding Corporation - Los Angeles (SUA), Grup Sicomiga Singleman ONG Agigea (Roma-nia), Halliburton - Regal Petroleum - Tender SA, TNK - BP (Russia), Conoco Philips (Great Britain), Kanooz Al Watan Oil (Saudi Arabia), Gazprom (Russia), ENI (Italy), Phoenix Oil Ltd (Cyprus), OMV (Austria) and Glencore (Switzerland).

"Gazprom", which has an indirect minority stake in "OMV Petrom", is one of the few hundred Russian companies which operate on the Romanian market, according to Mr. Macsim: "< Gazprom >, only operates < Gazprom Export > directly - the station of Isaccea which provides the connection to the pipeline coming from Ukraine and goes to the Balkans.

"But the company would like to do more here. It is now working in Romania through a representative office of a branch it has in Serbia - < Gazprom Neft >, which focuses almost exclusively on natural gas. It is a giant in the field, which is almost a rival for < RussNeft > - the largest state owned company. They bought some Canadian perimeters where they will drill for oil, and rehabilitate oil wells. < Gazprom > is also seriously interested in building natural gas-powered electricity generators, which would use heavily the Isaccea entrypoint, coming from Ukraine. It also has stakes in < Ruhrgas >, < Wintershall >-ul, which is making acquisitions now, is also partially theirs, it owns shares in "Gaz De France Suez", in E.ON, they have several interests they are not all visible. In fact, < Gazprom > has several subsidiaries, which are more or less visible".

According to him, "Gazprom" intends to invest in the construction of 10-15 warehouses in Romania and to acquire several hundred gas stations.