EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN"T SUCCEED IN ACQUIRING THE GAS STATIONS OF ROMPETROL, Russians aren"t giving up on their plans to enter the Romanian market

The refusal of the Kazakhs of "Rompetrol" to consider the sale of the gas stations that the Group owns in Romania, to the Serbian company NIS, owned by "Gazprom", doesn"t seem to have deterred the Russians from their plans to enter the Romanian market.

"As to what concerns the operations of NIS in Romania, we want to inform you that Natfa Industrija Srbije is pursuing a strategy to expand outside of Serbia, targeting the Balkan region and of South-Eastern Europe", the officials of "Gazprom Neft" said, in response to an enquiry by the BURSA daily, adding: "We are currently evaluating potentially interesting assets and partnerships on the Romanian territory as well. During this process, we have sent a letter to Rompetrol in which we have suggested to the company to consider the potential for cooperation in several areas of interest, including the growth of the retail business.

The lack of interest of Rompetrol will not affect the plans of the company for a potential entry on the Romanian market".

Saduokhas Meraliyev, the CEO of the Rompetrol Group, revealed the fact that, about two weeks ago, he received a letter of intent from NIS for the sale of the TRG chain of gas stations it owns in Romania. However, the reply of "Rompetrol" was negative, according to Mr. Meraliyev, who said that the possibility of selling the key assets of Rompetrol such as the chain of gas stations or the Petromidia refinery was never taken into consideration.

"We are constantly getting bids for some of our assets, it is something quite common, but we"ve never taken such a proposal into consideration", said Meraliyev.

Titus Buzescu, the vice-president of the fuel distribution operation of the Rompetrol group, said, on the same occasion, that the chain of gas stations owned by Rompetrol in Romania, is valued at about 500-600 million Euros.

"Gazprom Neft" owns about 56% of "Natfa Industrija Srbije" (NIS), which is in turn owned by Russian state owned company "Gazprom", which owns about 80% of NIS.

The Serbian state has a stake of about 26% of NIS, with the remaining shareholders being investment funds and banks such as Julius Baer, East Capital Asset Management or Royal Bank of Scotland.

NIS owns two refineries, in Pancevo and Novi Sad, with a combined annual capacity of 7.3 million tons, according to information from the website of Gazprom Neft.