"Romgaz" to begin exploration in Slovakia and Poland; to participate in call for bids in Iraq

Romgaz will begin exploration of some deposits in Slovakia and Poland, and by the end of this year, it will submit the documentation needed to access the Iraq market, Francisc Toth, the deputy managing director of the company said yesterday in Mediaş. According to Agerpres, he made the following statement: "At this very moment, we are preparing documentation for an exploitation perimeter in Iraq, on the Kurdish side. This will be a joint-venture. I can"t tell you the surface that we are talking about. Our project is beginning to shape up in Slovakia, as well as in Poland, and we are moving to the exploration phase, which is set to begin at the end of this year".

• A delegation of Gazprom is expected in Romania

Francisc Toth also said that in the coming period, a new meeting between the working groups of Romgaz and Gazprom will take place, concerning the extension of a memorandum which expired last month: "In 2010 we signed a memorandum with Gazprom providing them with a list of deposits that we could convert, but we haven"t gotten around to finalizing those talks. The agreement expired on May 25th, 2011, but it will be extended, even though I don"t know by how much. The working groups of Romgaz and Gazprom will meet in Romania to discuss this issue".

The collaboration between Romgaz and Gazprom concerns both bringing Russian gas closer to the European Union as well as its sale in the winter time. The Romanian side received the collaboration memorandum with Gazprom at the end of May 2009, and Romania invited Russia to build electric plants in Romania. At the time, former minister of the economy, Adriean Videanu, said that direct contracts for importing Russian gas in Romania were concluded.