With the war in Ukraine, for more than one year and a half, now, there is an increasing sense of emergency in respect with improving Europe’s and Romania’s security of gas supply and diversification of access to gas resources. Answering a question from Energynomics, the CEO of Romgaz, Răzvan Popescu, presented some of the actions taken by the company in order to improve both security of supply and access to new sources of gas.
“What Romgaz have been doing during the past two years is actually ensure that the end consumer and the household consumer are protected”, Răzvan Popescu said. He mentioned the Government ordinances 27 and 119, which established that over 86% of Romgaz’ production would be allocated to the suppliers of the household consumers and to the thermoenergetic power plants for covering needs of the cities during the winter.
“Depogaz has been an integral part of this effort”, continued Răzvan Popescu. “Our deposits are almost 100% full, now, so we are going into the winter with solid reserves of gas which is very important to have in this period, when the imports have gone down”.
The CEO of Romgaz also talked about the workovers performed during the summer at “a number of wells, compressor stations, and drying stations”. “We are prepared for what the cold season will bring”, he said. Additionally, Popescu pointed out that some of the wells that have been in conservation for the past five or six years, as they were considered not economical at that point in time, have been connected to the national transport system, “with an immediate impact”.
Turning to actions with impact on a medium term, Răzvan Popescu talked about the six more wells which are to be drilled at Caragele perimeter. “This program is going to take some time. This is something that we are looking to put into production maybe mid 2024 – mid 2025. This also is very dependent on how the drilling programs will go, especially because we are talking about wells to be drilled at depths of over 5,000 meters, under very difficult conditions. We are trying to start the drillings as soon as possible, hopefully, by the end of this year, but, definitely, not later than the beginning of the next year. Only after this, we will have new geological information and a proper valuation of about what Caragele actually holds.”
The Caragele project has been put into production since 2009 and have been a productive field already, with 13 operational wells at the moment, one deep well included.
The biggest new gas resource for Romania is the Neptune Deep offshore project in the Black Sea. Romgaz and OMV Petrom expect the first gas volumes starting in 2027, and the main contract for infrastructure development have been signed this August. Italian Saipem will execute engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning services for the Neptune Deep project, and the first operations at sea are expected to start by the middle of the next year.