An oil pipeline to connect Constanţa and Pancevo

• The representatives of the shareholders of the Pan-European Oil Pipeline (PEOP) will notify the Romanian and Serbian government on the need to speed up construction

On Wednesday, the representatives of the shareholders of the developer of the Constanţa - Trieste (PEOP) pipeline project, have made the historical decision to begin work on the project. The shareholders will inform the Romanian and Serbian government about the need to speed up construction on the Piteşti - Pancevo route.

Silviu Ioan Wagner, the general manager of "Oil Terminal" Constanţa, a company which is a shareholder of PEOP together with "Conpet" Ploieşti, said: "In my opinion this is a historical moment because the shareholders have decided to begin construction work. The two governments will review the report of the company which manages the project and will need to approve the construction of the oil pipeline. Between Constanţa and Piteşti there are already the pipelines of Conpet. The section that needs to be developed is Piteşti - Pancevo".

He said that the latter section has a length of 435 km, and will require an investment of 220.5 million Euros. The contribution of the Serbian side will be of 22 million Euros, since the Serbian section of the Piteşti - Pancevo pipeline is only 55 km in length.

Also on Wednesday, the heads of the board of PEOP have decided on the need to cut the costs with the law firm and the auditor. For this reason, the shareholders have decided to move the headquarters of the project company from London to Brussels. The London office will only provide representation on a secretarial level.

Silviu Ioan Wagner explained: "This decision will be implemented within 30 days after sending Croatia a request to notify the PEOP whether or not it will remain a part of the project.

If we do not receive an answer within the aforementioned delay, we will reconsider our position against the Croatian partners".

Aside from Croatia, the countries that have so far announced their strong interest to participate in the construction of the oil duct are Slovenia and Italy. In turn, according to the ministry of the Economy, the PEOP project has sparked the interest of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Recently Gazprom Neft announced it was interested in the project as well.

In 2007, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Italy have signed an agreement for the construction of PEOP, a pipeline of 1,319 km in length, which would carry crude from the Caspian basin to Constanţa and the Italian port of Trieste. The project is expected to involve an investment of 2-2.5 billion dollars. The current shareholders of the company developing the PEOP project are "Conpet" Ploieşti, "Oil Terminal", "Transnafta" (Serbia) and "JANAF" (Croatia) but the latter has not yet paid its part of the share capital of the company managing the project.