Petrom joins wind power race

Petrom, the biggest local company and the only producer of petroleum and gas in Romania, has joined the European energy giants with billions of euros in budgets, buying a wind farm project in which it will invest 100 million euros until 2011. Compared with the projects announced thus far, the size of the wind farm that Petrom will develop in Dobrogea, 45 MW, is not very impressive, but there is a hint in the step taken by the company.

“This is a signal that investments must continue. Investments are the factor that helps the economy rebound. In addition, there are opportunities on the market and prices are better compared with 2008,” says Mariana Gheorghe, Petrom’s chief executive, who runs a 3 billion-euro business.

A total of 13 billion euros were invested in wind power projects in Europe last year, with Romania missing yet another opportunity to create jobs and bring new money into the economy while the crisis was going on, with only 3 MW installed locally, that is a turbine and a half.

Things seem set to drastically change in 2010, given that CEZ (Czech Republic) alone will have 139 turbines running by autumn. Spain’s Iberdrola, worldwide wind power leader, says that it will build the world’s biggest wind farm in Dobrogea by 2017, whose capacity will stand at 1,500 MW, which is higher than that of two reactors of the Cernavoda nuclear plant. The two projects alone entail investments of over 3 billion euros, double the budget the Transport Ministry has for motorways and national roads in one year. Other wind power investors include Enel (Italy), Verbund (Austria) and Energias de Portugal.