KazMunayGas, the owner of Rompetrol, wants to serve every market in the Black Sea region.
“We want to bring fuel from Romania mainly, because it is produced here and this is the right thing do to,” says Azamat Zhangulov, senior vice-president of Rompetrol Group.
The export markets will be those the group operates on at the moment, such as Bulgaria, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, as well as some new ones such as Turkey, he added.
“I think we can succeed with our exports and even have gas stations in each of these countries. We don’t have any in Turkey but we are working on a program to improve our presence there,” Zhangulov said without providing any details.
He had previously said Rompetrol was considering expansion to Turkey by takeovers or by building its own network from scratch. The strategy is to develop the network in the Black Sea region in order to sell the rising production of the refinery in Navodari (town by the Black Sea).
Rompetrol will invest a further $200 million in the next five years to open about 150 filling stations in Romania, where it is the second largest fuel retailer, with a network of 400 stations. Another 200 should open in Bulgaria, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia.
The Turkish fuel market is growing at a rate of about 4% a year largely because of the increase in diesel oil consumption in line with the European trend of shifting from gas to diesel. Sales of gas stood at 1.8 million tons in 2012, down 6.6% on 2011, while sales of diesel oil rose by 6.1% to 15.6 tons, according to a report of Turkey’s energy market regulator, EMRA.
The number of cars in that country is rising, too, according to World Bank data, going from 92 cars per one thousand people in 2008 to 104 in 2010.
In Turkey, Rompetrol will meet its main rival in Romania, Austria’s OMV, which owns Petrol Ofisi, the largest fuel retailer there, with a 22.4% market share in 2012. Other competitors on this market segment are Turkish-held OPET, 17% market share, Shell & Turcas, 16.7% and UK’s BP, 8.9%, according to EMRA.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)