The Black Sea is an opportunity for the national energy system and our role is to capitalize on these opportunities and, therefore, at the ministry level we are working on a law that regulates very well offshore wind energy production, said on Wednesday George Niculescu, secretary state in the Ministry of Energy at Energy Strategy Summit 2022.

“Coming back to investing – in terms of the exploitation of indigenous sources, which we have at hand at the national level – and a good example – when there is will and political consensus: we have seen the new offshore gas law pass in a way very quickly through the Parliament, in a way that balances the interests of the Romanian state and the interests of hydrocarbon investors in the Black Sea – and I hope to be able to achieve a legislative framework at least as balanced and as good for investments in the offshore wind because, I have said and will say this again: I believe that the Black Sea is an opportunity for the national energy system, and our role is to capitalize on these opportunities, and therefore at the ministry level we are working on a law to regulate very well the offshore wind production. We have a lot of projects, we focus a lot on investments, solutions to the price crisis and we keep in touch with all the institutional partners, ANRE (National Energy Regulatory Authority) and ministries,” said George Niculescu, at the Energy Strategy Summit 2022, according to Agerpres.

In his opinion, investments are very important during this period to overcome the challenges facing the national energy system.

“Despite the latest challenges facing the national energy system – and I am referring here not only to the crisis in Ukraine, but we were in the midst of a transition process – and we must not deviate from this transition process, no matter what happens around us – the energy price crisis, the conflict in Ukraine – at the Ministry of Energy we are determined to find the best solutions to continue our projects, to continue the transition process – we do not want to stop at all from our efforts – and to continue to look for opportunities and solutions to overcome the energy price crisis we are facing during this period. We can do this by investing. From my point of view, investments are very important in this period to overcome all these challenges. There has been a lot of talk and I want to put on the agenda the unprecedented level of funds available so far, both from PNRR and from the Modernization Fund, amounts that are available to investors throughout the energy system (production, transport, distribution),” he said.

“We are talking about a call for projects – on June 30 it is launched for storage capacity, so also flexibility in terms of the national energy system, in conclusion, an unprecedented level of funds available for investment, of course with a predominant focus on renewable energy. The crisis in Ukraine has shown all states, especially in south-eastern Europe, that we depend on a supplier of natural gas and oil for a supplier – and that needs to change in the near future, and we are making considerable efforts to change this situation – and to diversify our sources of supply as well as the routes through which we supply natural gas and crude oil,” the official added.