"Romgaz" begins preparations for its listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange

The Minister of the Economy, Adriean Videanu, announced in mid-May that "Romgaz" will be listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Marcel Piteiu, the general manager of "Romgaz", said: "Following the announcement made by minister Videanu, the officials of the company have begun the discussions concerning the evaluation of the company and the drawing up of the documentation, to allow us to float 10-15% of the stock on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. At the moment it is premature to discuss about who will intermediate this listing".

The gas producer held by the state, has very ambitious projects to explore domestic and foreign oil resources. Due to the fact that the Caspian area is one of the main potential resources for the AGIR gas transport projects (Azerbaijan - Georgia - Romania) and Nabucco (Turkey - Bulgaria - Romania - Hungary - Austria), the experts of "Romgaz" are carefully reviewing the possibility of running oil operations in this area. "The specialization department of the company is at the moment reviewing the information and data acquired, and, once one or more projects materialize we will make the appropriate decisions", said Mr. Piteiu.

In association with private investors, "Romgaz" is currently exploring and exploiting oil wells in Slovakia and Poland. After the first exploration operations, in which the company paid for around 260 km of 2d seismic data (ed. note: industry-specific works) and field studies were made in order to obtain structural and geo-chemical data a series of leads were found which increased the potential of the perimeters of Svidnik, Medzilaborce and Snina.

According to the general manager of "Romgaz", higher potential areas were found in all of the three perimeters which were concessioned, thus justifying the continuation of operations and in the second stage, of the exploration of the aforementioned blocks.

These areas will be assessed by drilling and seismic exploration intended to clearly delineate the size of the potential deposits, as well as to discover new areas which have potential for exploration.

"Romgaz" has submitted joint tenders with "Exxonmobil" and "OMV Petrom", on May 19th, during the tenth round of call for tenders for the concessioning of several oil perimeters in the Black Sea region. Marcel Piteiu said that the terms and conditions are confidential and he was not allowed to discuss the amount of financial resources that the company can mobilize for these explorations if it were to win the call for tenders. The winners will be announced publicly by the National Agency for Mineral Resources (ANRM) at the end of this month.

The specialists of "Gazprom" are currently reviewing the proposal of "Romgaz" concerning the depleted gas deposits located in Romania, which could potentially be used as underground stores, said Marcel Piteiu. In the near future, the Russian gas giant will present the results of its assessment to "Romgaz". The parties have agreed to extend the validity period of the Memorandum between "Gazprom" and "Romgaz" until May 25th 2011.

"Romgaz" intends to enter the electricity market through its power house of Iernut, which it will take over from "Termoelectrica", as payment for the unpaid receivables that it needs to recover from the electricity producer. The management of "Romgaz" said that under the current circumstances it is premature to make any clear-cut statement on the deadline and the plans for the future concerning the Iernut power house.