Romania becomes the main supplier of gas in Eastern Europe
Photo: Unsplash
The announcement regarding the opening of OMV’s investment in the exploitation of gas from the Black Sea led German newspapers to write about Europe’s mistakes in the region and about the importance of Romania in the energy independence of the EU, reports Deutsche Welle. The Black Sea was, for years, a strictly local topic. The appeals of politicians from the area, whether Romanian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, or Georgian, have always been overlooked by their counterparts in the West. Romanians are left with the annual dilemma: vacation at Cape Aurora or Cape Kaliakra? Perhaps the Germans from the former Soviet East of the Federal Republic still have some memories of their childhood summers spent with their parents at the Golden Sands, so travel agencies offer them more all-inclusive packages in Bulgaria. They are cheaper than at any other destination. More recently, there has been a problem: there is war in the north of the small Black Sea. But the Bulgarians hope to return tourism to the level before the pandemic. It doesn’t matter where the tourists come from. Otherwise, the Black Sea was, as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes in an analysis published today, a “Great Clausum,” a sea that the West perceived as closed between the narrow interests of Russia and Turkey: “The invasion of Ukraine by Russia highlighted an area that Europeans have almost forgotten. The West has neglected the region militarily, politically, and economically.” Russia exports its oil, subject to international sanctions, through the Black Sea. Kazakhstan needs this route for its oil sales. Ukraine for vital grain supplies. Ferries to Georgia offer the Silk Road an alternative to the Russian routes. And Azerbaijan wants to supply electricity through submarine cables. Finally, a four-billion-euro investment in a Romanian offshore gas field has just been announced.
At the moment, the biggest risk comes from the negotiations with Russia over Ukrainian grain exports. Moscow is also allowed to export grain, but it has financial problems due to international sanctions, “and that is exactly what it wants to negotiate”, observes FAZ, recalling that Vladimir Putin has no intention of extending the agreement negotiated by Turkey after July 17 and the UN. The fluvial alternative, with the expansion of the ports in the Danube Delta or the railway to the west, could not compensate for the losses on the maritime routes. In addition, we have also witnessed the anger of farmers in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, generated by the low prices of imports from Ukraine. ” The powerless West will not be willing to relax sanctions. All he can hope for is to pin his hopes on Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for whom closing the grain transit corridor would be a setback and damage his image as a successful negotiator. Nor would Putin have any interest in jeopardising the economic, military, or political balance in relations with Turkey. But Erdogan will come to his Western counterparts with a bill to pay. Which, in the end, will be the consequence of a long neglect of this peripheral area, during which the European Union behaved as a mere spectator.” And, as FAZ concludes, “there are enough reasons for a more active European policy in the Black Sea. With new ideas and a plan to include Ukraine and Turkey. Only a reactive attitude, such as the Three Seas Initiative, initiated by Romania, Poland, and the United States to remove Chinese influence in Eastern Europe, is not enough.” The Black Sea is also a topic in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which, under the title “More gas for Europe from Romania”, reports, in its economic section, about the billions invested by OMV in the infrastructure for the exploitation and transport of energy resources. And the Swiss newspaper talks about the failures of European policies, which, in the context approached by NZZ, led to dependence on Russian gas. Among them, “the faster exploitation of the rich deposits of the Black Sea was neglected”. Europe needs alternatives, and the long-delayed project seems to be moving forward after the Austrian company announced that it will invest four billion euros together with its Romanian partner Romgaz in extracting gas from the Neptun Deep offshore field in the Black Sea. “It was once said that the volume of exploitable gas is around 80 billion cubic metres. OMV Petrom is now talking about 100 billion cubic metres. About a tenth of this will be mined each year, i.e., 10 billion cubic metres, 20 to 25% more than Austria’s annual requirement. Of course, only a small part will flow there—if, after all, gas is also delivered to Austria. OMV claims that from 2027 South-Eastern Europe and the EU will be supplied with gas from the Black Sea”. Romania, which also has other exploitable gas fields, becomes the largest producer in the European Union, and this further increases its strategic significance in the energy sector after becoming, with the war in Ukraine, one of the most important military partners of the United States, notes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Surely, the Swiss newspaper asks, what reason did Europe have for neglecting this resource for so long? OMV waited over ten years until it was decided to open the deposits in Romania. “The company had repeatedly suggested, and it’s true, rather vaguely, that the investment climate in Romania is unattractive. In 2018, the then-ruling post-communists hastily amended a bill that reduced investor interest. A point of contention then was how the gas business should be taxed. A new law, approved last year, gave enough clarity to induce OMV to invest”. On the other hand, writes the Swiss newspaper at the end of the article, “there have always been rumours that Russia is doing everything it can to torpedo the Neptun Deep project. This story fits with the suspicion that Russia also thwarted the Nabucco pipeline project, the project abandoned in 2013 that was supposed to bring gas from Azerbaijan to Central Europe. The pipeline would be welcome today.”
By Corra Suleyman
