US finances Romanian gas transporter's feasibility studies for Black Sea gas pipeline

The United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will grant Romania's gas transporter Transgaz USD 965,000 for the feasibility studies necessary for building two gas transport corridors which will take over the gas extracted from Black Sea deposits, currently explored by ExxonMobil and OMV Petrom. The new US Ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm and Transgaz’s CEO Petru Vaduva signed the agreement on September 24. American group ExxonMobil and Romanian group OMV Petrom, which is controlled by Austria’s OMV, have found large gas deposits in the Black Sea, which they will start extracting after 2018. State-owned gas transporter Transgaz plans to build two pipelines that would allow not only to take over the gas from the Black Sea shore into the national transport system, but further transport it to the EU, via the Bulgaria - Romania - Hungary - Austria corridor. The costs for connecting the deposits in the Black Sea to the national gas transport system are estimated at some EUR 255 million. Romania’s Transgaz issues EUR 111 mln bonds to finance gas pipeline Romanian gas transporter ups profit in the first half Romania’s gas transporter plans EUR 1.5 bln investments for regional pipeline editor@romania-insider.com