Romania imported in January this year an amount of 511.800 tonnes of crude oil equivalent (tep), with 19.100 toe (+ 3.9%) higher than those imported in the same period last year, according to the centralized data from the National Statistics Institute (INS). The oil production totaled 302.300 tep, being by 5.13% (-16.100 tep) less than in January 2015.

Taking into account the average annual production over the last years (3.9 million tons), Romania’s current reserves of crude oil will be exhausted in about 20 years, estimates the Ministry of Energy.

“In the past five years, domestic oil production has steadily declined by 2% and the forecast for the next five years emphasize the decline. Limiting the decline of 2% was achieved through significant investments to maintain the level of production as high as possible – digging new wells, repair and re-establishment of production works, withdrawals / additions, investments on the application of secondary recovery processes, etc. But in the current context of the oil price and the pessimistic forecasts on its recovery in the coming years, low volume of investments and costs to maintain production is anticipated. in these circumstances, the development of oil production will probably be negative,” reads the draft of the Energy Strategy.

According to it, most of the oil deposits in Romania are mature fields, with a high degree of depletion and maintaing them in production requires a large investment and operating expenses. In the last five years up to 32 mature oil fields were dropped, being considered uneconomic to exploit.

Source

Agerpres