Russian group Gazprom, the biggest gas producer in the world, announced at the end of last week that it had closed an agreement with the Conef trader to deliver 50 billion cubic metres of gas from Russia, with a value estimated at over 12 billion euros.
At the end of last week, Alexander Medvedev, vice-chairman of Gazprom announced the Russian giant”s intention to build an integrated structure on the Romanian market with production, storage, transport, trade and distribution operations. The announcement was made in a press conference held in Bucharest, which was also attended by the minister of economy and trade, Codrut Seres.
Reducing Romania”s dependency on Russian energy seems to be out of the question, now that Gazprom not only wants to enter the market directly as a player, but also join in the Nabucco project, which is seen as an alternative to imports contracted from Gazprom.
The transaction between Gazprom and Conef, controlled by a powerful Russian businessman from the aluminium industry, will result in a major player being formed on the gas market in Romania, with annual business worth hundreds of millions of euros.
Conef Bucharest will therefore import 2 billion cubic metres of gas per year until 2030, thus securing a big share in imports of Russian gas, in competition with companies that Wintershall holds shares in.
Conef will have an approximately 10% share of the gas market in Romania. The trader will resell this amount on the domestic market, with the bulk of it to probably reaching the industrial consumers on the free market.
The Conef Bucharest trader is 99.9% owned by investment group Marco Group, which controls aluminium manufacturer Alro Slatina. The Marco Group is controlled by the Russian businessman Vitaly Mashytsky.
Alexander Medvedev, vice-chairman of Gazprom and one of the most powerful people in Russia, announced in Bucharest that they had signed the agreement with “our partner Conef”. Medvedev is general manager of Gazexport, the export division of Gazprom.
“Under the agreement, the take-or-pay system will be used when making deliveries, which is accepted in all European long-term contracts. The price of delivered gas will be calculated on the basis of a formula, with indexes taking into account the published quotes of petroleum products on the European market,” say the contracting parties.
The agreement provides for a delivery of 40 billion cubic metres in the 2010 – 2030 period and extends the agreement for the 2005 – 2009 period, which had already been closed by the two parties.
So far, Gazprom and Conef officials have not provided further details on the contract, on how payment will be made or which sectors the company intends to target. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro