Oil business tycoon Comănescu takes "Grup Servicii Petroliere" to Kazakhstan

• The company is interested in the oil and gas of the Caspian Sea and is looking to set up partnerships with local operators in the business

• Doru Mihai Dediu, the former managing director of Petrom Kazakhstan, appointed as CEO

Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP), a company controlled by one of the Romanian oil tycoons, Gabriel Valentin Comănescu, has expanded its business to Kazakhstan.

According to the Romanian Official Gazette, on January 10, 2011, the shareholders of GSP have decided to set-up in Alma-Ata, the most important economic and trade center of Kazakhstan, the company "GSP Kazakhstan".

Doru Mihai Dediu former managing director of Petrom"s operations in Kazakhstan, was appointed as managing director of GSP Kazakhstan.

GSP Kazakhstan will have a share capital of 800,000 tenge (the domestic currency), and all the formalities pertaining to the registration of the company will be handled by law Kazakh law firm "Grata".

"GSP is interested in the opportunities provided by the oil and gas industry of the Caspian Sea and has decided to open a representative office in Kazakhstan", said Radu Petrescu, the Communications Director of GSP.

The company"s official said that GSP Kazakhstan is looking to set up partnerships with Kazakh companies operating in the same line of business: "The Caspian Sea has rich oil and natural gas resources and GSP thinks that now is a good time to set up potential partnerships with local companies operating in the industry. The office was opened in the beginning of January and is currently being developed".

One of the largest players in the oil sector of Kazakhstan is the state owned company KazMunayGaz (KMG), which acquired 75% of the shares of the Rompetrol group from Dinu Patriciu in 2007, in a deal valued at 1.6 billion dollars.

Another "heavy-weight" in the Kazakh oil-industry present in the Caspian Sea region is the TengizChevroil consortium (owned by Chevron Texaco, ExxonMobil, the Kazakh state and Russian company Lukarco).

• Expanding into the former Soviet area

GSP specializes in marine drilling and recently expanded its line of business to include off-shore construction, by incorporating "GSP Shipyard", after acquiring a specialized ship for this kind of works, with an estimated value of 100 million dollars.

The shareholders of GSP are "Upetrom Group Management" (90%) and "RCI Grup Consultanţă" and businessman Gabriel Valentin Comănescu of Constanţa which hold 5% each. In 2009, the company had a net turnover of 921,998,617 lei and a profit of 28,080.633 lei, according to the latest balance sheet published on the website of the Ministry of Public Finance.

GSP"s expansion into the Caspian Sea region comes as, over the past few years, the company has been increasingly active in the energy sector in the former Soviet area.

In December 2009, GSP won a contract of 269 million dollars from the Russia consortium Gazprom for the construction of the undersea pipeline "Dzhubga-Lazarevskoe - Sochi" in the Black Sea.

The pipeline was being developed by the Russian government in order to ensure the continuous gas supply of the cities located near the Caucasus" Sea coast at the Black Sea, as the Russian federation will be hosting in 2014 the Winter Olympics, and the city of Sochi will be the capital of this event.