Petrom: $10m for quality

SNP (National Oil Company) Petrom on Wednesday received from the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) a $264,000 grant for drafting a feasibility study that precedes a 10 million-dollar investment. The investment will be used for the introduction of an automated system for the linear mixing of fuel components produced by the two Petrom refineries – Arpechim and Petrobrazi. This system will replace the manual system that is currently in use. The investment must be completed by 2005. According to Petrom officials, modernisation linked to this project will help raise the quality standard of the company’s fuel, dealing at the same time with the refineries’ environment issues. “Following this investment, cases where we supplied fuel at an uneven quality will be done away with, and costs will go down by 15-20%,” said Gheorghe Constantinescu, Petrom general manager. Constantinescu did not specify however which costs would be reduced. According to the general manager, the deal shows that “Petrom is joining the club of large oil companies,” since the investment “verifies the company’s modernisation policy, which has been promoted at all levels.” Thomas Delare, a representative of the US embassy in Bucharest, stated that the investment would push the company’s market value up. The two officials did not relate the USTDA loan to the interest of US oil companies in the privatisation of Petrom. According to market rumours, the US group Halliburton supposedly wants to buy the Romanian company. Rumours were also fed by the visit Haliburton’s CEO to Bucharest. ZF