“For Romgaz, which had almost no debts, a listing was not needed for financing investments. Romgaz needs a performance enhancement,” said Gabriel Dumitrascu, the head of the Energy Department’s privatization unit.
“We were all for setting the halt of the production decrease as the main objective in the management plan,” Dumitrascu told the MEDIAFAX Talks about Energy conference.
He added that Romania’s gas imports would be almost zero if the production of Romgaz had been at the 2000’s level.
In the past years, Romgaz’s production declined by an average 4.7% annually.
Dumitrascu also said he has no answer to why the company’s management didn’t stop the reduction. “Investments were made, despite that some of them were not finalized, maybe there wereno adequate investments,” the official said.
Romgaz is one of Romania’s two large gas producers, alongside OMV Petrom.
The government pledged to list the company on the Bucharest stock exchange in the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Romania might obtain EUR600 million by selling 15% in Romgaz.