Romanian gas deposit Roman-Margineni should be tied to neighbor Moldova, state company deems

The Russian gas giant Romgaz and Petrostar Ploiesti are a few steps away from inking an agreement on the feasibility study at the Romanian gas deposit. The company in charge of the deposit works, state-controlled Romgaz, gauges that the investments in this deposit could amount to 500 million euros, while its capacity could reach 2 billion cubic meters.

Romania lacks interconnecting pipes with its neighbors. The country has only one such on-going project with Hungary - a pipe to be constructed from Szeged to Arad. This should be finished by January 1 next year and have a capacity of 4.4 billion cubic meters per year.

Also, plans to have links with Serbia and Ukraine are off because of the economic downturn, Rusu said.

At the beginning of the year Romania and its neighbors had to cope with a shortage in gas consumption triggered by a several-day halt of shipping from Russia via Ukraine, after the two had a dispute over the transport price.