Investors will extract 10% of the country’s gas consumption from the Black Sea, starting next year, Niculae Havrileţ, secretary of state in the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment, said on Tuesday at the FOREN 2020 online conference.

Havrileţ did not specify the name of the company, but referred to Black Sea Oil & Gas, which announced that it will start production in the Midia offshore perimeter in the first half of 2021.

Romania consumes about 10-11 billion cubic meters of gas annually. “In Romania, the energy production sector has suffered a major impact due to low demand, but we need to recover. We have an integrated plan, there is a strategy to move production from coal to gas, because Romania has the opportunity of the Black Sea. There are investors who will bring 10% of the total annual demand to the market starting next year. So, fortunately, we have natural gas and we have important coal generation capacity, which needs to be transformed to be used for decarbonised energy,” he said, according to Agerpres.

He stressed that despite the Covid-19 crisis, investment continues.

“The activity is ongoing, we need to increase demand, we need to invest in new capacity, but also in infrastructure, where this public service is not functional. We have European support of one billion euro to expand gas distribution infrastructure and we intend to use innovation funds to use natural gas to produce hydrogen. Also, at the moment, many energy producers want to invest in new opportunities, in offshore wind farms, following a World Bank study that says that in the Romanian part of the Black Sea there is a wind potential of 80,000 MW,” Havrileţ explained.

This will also help achieve the target assumed by Romania, to reach a renewable energy of 30.7% of consumption in 2030, compared to 24% today, added the representative of the Ministry of Energy.