NIS opened two gas stations on the Bucharest-Pitesti highway at the end of last week. Now Gazprom has 12 gas stations in Romania, it plans to have 50 by the end of the year and 120 by 2015.
“We are analyzing the market. We are constantly having talks with all players,” said Kirill Kravchenko, CEO of NIS and Deputy CEO for Foreign Assets Management in JSC Gazprom Neft, in answer to whether the company had so far had negotiations with major players on the Romanian oil market regarding potential acquisitions of filling stations.
For instance Rompetrol officials said in the summer of 2011 they had a letter of intent on the table signed by Serbia’s NIS to buy Rompetrol’s entire filling stations network, but Rompetrol declined the offer.
In 2011 several market sources said Gazprom was also in negotiations with Austria’s OMV to buy 130 OMV Petrom gas stations. The information was denied by Petrom. But OMV did sell its gas stations in Bosnia at the end of 2012.
The company plans to reach 50 gas stations by the end of this year, after investments of around EUR70 million, and 120 stations by 2015, in the wake of EUR150 million investments.
“We have 20 filling stations under construction and 85% of them are greenfield investments,” explains the NIS representative.
According to information provided by the company, there are currently 12 operational Gazprom gas stations in Romania.
“This autumn we will also have the first gas station in Bucharest,” says Adrian Balan-Doltu, business development director within NIS Petrol, the company through which NIS develops its business in Romania.
Romanian market has good potential
“Romania is a big country, with good economic potential, where fuel sales per station are below those recorded in other countries in the region. So there is still room for growth,” the NIS manager also said.
According to him, the fuel sold by NIS in Romania comes both from Pancevo refinery in Serbia and from Romanian-based companies that have refining facilities, such as Lukoil and OMV Petrom.
“We have good relations with both companies,” the NIS manager also said.
Apart from development plans on the fuel distribution segment, NIS is also involved in exploration and production projects in Romania.
“On the exploration and production segment, we have three projects we have been involved in since 2011, located in western Romania, where we are working with partners. So far we have invested around EUR15 million in them and we believe next year we will also have detailed information about the hydrocarbon potential. If the signals are good, investments could reach hundreds of millions of euros,” Kravchenko also said.
The NIS representative also said the company was not for the time being interested in deep-sea exploration of the Black Sea or in sale gas, adding that all work would be done using conventional methods.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)