Designated Minister of Economy, Virgil Popescu, claims that the issue of withdrawal from the Black Sea was not even approached, in Tuesday’s discussion with OMV chief Reiner Seele and that the investors’ representatives did not submit any deadline in which they should to change the Romanian legislation so as to take the decision to extract gas.

“It was a discussion regarding the OMV priorities in Romania, what investments they want to make. (OMV chief, Reiner Seele) requested this meeting. Obviously there was also a discussion regarding the offshore law. My point of view and the prime minister is the same: the offshore law is only changed in Parliament, by political consensus of all parliamentary groups. Until this political consensus is reached, we cannot change it – we are talking about the modification of the offshore law,” said Popescu, quoted by Agerpres.

Asked by journalists if OMV representatives informed him that they want to withdraw from the Neptune Deep project, he replied: “It is excluded. There has been no such talk.”

Journalists have insisted on finding out if it is true that OMV has set a deadline for this summer for an investment decision in the Black Sea. “There is no way for an investor to give a term to a Government about this. It has not been discussed,” said Popescu.