Arrearage tightens grip on Romgaz

The natural gases sector, authoritatively ruled by the state-owned companies, is losing the battle against arrearage and lack of cash. These two problems, a common denominator for all the companies in the sector, produce a boomerang effect on their investment programmes.
Romgaz Medias, the leading natural gases producer in Romania expects to see arrears up to 1,858bn ROL ($53 million) and outstanding receivables of more than 4,600bn ROL ($132 million), against 10,889bn ROL ($311 million) turnover.
“These are the figures specified in the spending and revenue budget for 2003 and we will see how things turn out in the end. We had scheduled to make some 3,000bn ROL in investments last year, more than 1,200bn ROL of which have been invested,” Lucian Stancu, deputy general manager of Societatea de Gaze Naturale (Natural Gas Company)  Romgaz SA Medias told Ziarul Financiar.
The top debtors of the natural gas producer are natural gases distributors Distrigaz Nord and Distrigaz Sud, as well as the leading electricity producer on the Romanian market, Termoelectrica.
By the end of November last year, Romgaz had come to total 4,384bn ROL ($133 million) in uncollected bills, while turnover reached more than 7,600bn ROL ($231 million). The arrears at that moment amounted to only 228bn ROL ($7 million), nine times less in ROL than anticipated early in the year.
The producer’s hopes to improve collection of debts from the natural gases distributors are tightly related to the privatisation of Distrigaz Nord and Distrigaz Sud, a process that has reached the consultant announcement stage.
“We hope the uncollected debt situation at Romgaz would improve, due to the privatisation of the two distribution companies,” Romgaz officials said.
The company has scheduled to invest more than 4,400bn ROL ($125 million) this year, which should be mainly aimed at the discovery of new deposits and new storage facilities.
Romgaz’s 2002 productive target was 7.4 billion cubic metres of natural gases, which accounts for approximately 55% of the total domestic production, with the rest covered by SNP Petrom, the largest company on the market.