Hungary, US press Romania to start exploiting Black Sea gas

“It is important that the international pressure persists, so Romania will start gas extraction in the Black Sea as of 2022”, said Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign and trade minister for a Hungarian news agency, local Profit.ro reported. Szijjártó was main speaker at the World Gas Conference in Washington so his message to the USA officials was probably the same. In fact, the US Embassy in Bucharest already reacted in a message on its Facebook page advising Romania to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunity to adopt legislation that should allow Black Sea hydrocarbons exploitation. Hungary’s impatience regarding gas exploration in the Black Sea is due to the fact that two Hungarian companies already reserved gas transport capacity from Romania to Hungary until 2030. Moreover, Hungary has already inked a deal with US group ExxonMobil to buy its gas production in the Black Sea. OMV Petrom and Exxon have made major gas discoveries in the Black Sea. Yet, the companies cannot make a decision on exploitation because the Parliament has not adopted the legislation regulating offshore operations. The law lingers in the Parliament’s special commission because the MPs have not agreed yet on the taxation of Black Sea gas. Black Sea gas could turn Romania into third-biggest European gas producer editor@romania-insider.com