The CEO of Rompetrol: I would be happy to have the Romanian state as a partner

"I would be happy to have the Romanian state as a partner in Rompetrol", Saduokhas Meraliyev, the CEO of the "Rompetrol Group" said yesterday, more or less seriously, implying that the Romanian state has agreed to the partial buyback of the bonds issue of 570 million Euros, at the current negotiation stage. The bonds are due in September this year, and the Romanian state runs the risk of becoming a shareholder la "Rompetrol Rafinare" again, if the company does not buy back the entirety of its bonds issue.

"We have not signed a final agreement with the Ministry of Finance, even though over the last few weeks we have negotiated the payment of a first tranche of 118 million lei. Rompetrol has the option of buying back the bonds in full or in part. Besides, over the course of the last years we have paid nearly 270 million dollars in interests. The interest rate is rather high on this bond issue", said Meraliyev.

Even though it seems they will not pay their debt to the Romanian state in full this year, the Kazakhs are apparently certain they won"t have a surprise shareholder, if the Romanian state were to decide to sell its stake in "Rompetrol Rafinare".

"It is very likely that if the state becomes a shareholder of Rompetrol again, it will be looking to sell its stake to another investors. If that were to happen, we have the right of first refusal, which will allow us to have priority over outside investors in buying the shares", said the CEO of "Rompetrol".

"Rompetrol Rafinare" currently has a share capital increase of 450 million lei (around 120 million dollars) under way, which will be used to pay back part of the amount owed. The share capital increase has coincided with the delisting procedure for the company, which the management of "Rompetrol" has requested after the completion of the public takeover bid. The Romanian Securities Commission has asked the management of "Rompetrol" to provide additional documents.

"We wanted to begin the "squeeze-out" procedure in order to buy the shares from the remaining shareholders, but the CNVM did not approve the operation. The negotiations for the delisting have already lasted quite a while, because there are still 25,000 shareholders which did not participate in the public takeover bid and which we need to notify by mail about the delisting. It"s a rather bureaucratic process", the CEO of Rompetrol said.

• A company of the "Rompetrol" group won two contracts worth 70 million dollars in Kazakhstan

"Rominserv", the general contractor of the "Rompetrol" group, recently won two contracts worth 70 million dollars, for the modernization of some facilities located in Atyrau, a major port in Kazakh part of the Caspian Sea, the officials of the company announced yesterday. The management of the company hopes to win more similar contracts, but this time as a subcontractor for a project with an estimated value of over 1 billion dollars, again for the modernization of the Atyrau port, a project for which the general contractor is a Chinese company.

"Our colleagues from Rominserv were in China and discussed with the General Contractor, to convince them of our technical abilities and of our capacity of operating as a subcontractor for the 1 billion dollar project", Meralyiev said yesterday.

Saduokhas Meraliyev, the CEO of the Rompetrol Group said that the group wants contracts worth 100 million dollars a year for Rominserv.