State energy companies must approve, by June 15, their investment strategies, with clear deadlines and financing sources, said on Monday the Minister of Economy, Energy and Business Environment, Virgil Popescu.
“If we’re talking about energy companies, what I’ve noticed so far is that they’ve talked, and they’ve talked, and they’ve talked about investment and that’s it. That’s why I asked for and issued an order, now I think two weeks ago, by which all companies that are under the authority of the Ministry of Economy, energy companies, have a deadline to approve until June 15, in the General Meeting of Shareholders, the investment strategy, the investment program, with very clear deadlines. I can honestly say that too many times I have heard, for example, of Romgaz wants to do, and it has an investment in Iernut that is never ending, with the beautiful projects that are (good) on paper, but which have not been completed,” said the minister, at B1TV, according to Agerpres.
He also added that he had heard many times that Hidroelectrica wants to make investments “and only wants to make investments to finish those investments from Ceausescu’s time, from the early 90’s”, but it does not talk about investments in the wind farms on the Black Sea or on photovoltaic farms on the dams it owns.
“The only thing it has done so far…was a partnership agreement with the similar Austrian company for hydrogen research and development as a possible future fuel. (…) It is very good that it has made this partnership, but I want solid investments and I want investments that matter and that can be done,” Virgil Popescu stressed.
“The Oltenia Energy Company has in the restructuring plan that it has to present very clearly, and I will have a meeting on Thursday with them, with the management and with the Supervisory Board, a photovoltaic park of 300 MW, besides those gas transitions of coal-fired power generation units. We need to take investments seriously,” Virgil Popescu also stated.
He reiterated that he strongly supports the construction of reactors 3 and 4 at Cernavoda and wants them to be done with partners from the European Union and NATO.