Financiarul

The Kazakh company holds full rights of the exploitation licence of the Kultuk undeveloped deposit, located onshore in the Pre-Caspian Basin, 34 km north-west of the Komsomolskoe deposit, also owned by Petrom.
The finalization of the transaction, whose price is confidential, took place on December 31, 2009, after obtaining the necessary approvals on behalf of the Kazakh authorities. Petrom considers the purchase as ‘substantial, being situated under 10 percent of OMV Petrom SA’s total assets value.’

Nevertheless, Petrom’s executive general manager Mariana Gheorghe says that ‘the expansion of our exploitation and production operations in Kazakhstan, during a period full of challenges’ is important for Petrom in order to allow the company ‘to reach a certain production quota on this market, thus confirming our commitment towards the assumed strategic objectives, the increase in Romania’s energy security included.’

A similar point of view was expressed by Johann Pleininger, member of Petrom’s Board of Directors, responsible for the exploitation and production activities, who underlined that ‘this purchase is very important and in line with our strategic objective of adding exploitation and production projects in three geological basins selected from western Kazakhstan, close to our already established production centres.’

The Kultuk deposit was discovered in the 80′s and has not been developed since then. Similarly to the Komsomolskoe deposit, already owned by Petrom, it is located in the onshore- offshore transition area, which is difficult from a technical and environmental point of view, being seasonally flooded by the Caspian Sea. Technical studies indicate the fact that the Kultuk deposit can be connected to the Komsomolskoe deposit and, this way, it can benefit from the existing installations and infrastructure.

The technical and operational synergies should lead to the reduction of the production costs for both deposits, compared with their individual development.
Petrom intends to make investments in the Kultuk deposit, including a new 3D seismic acquisition, additional oil derricks and production tests for the next 2-3 years, in order to confirm the size and feasibility of the deposit development.

The acquisition is also important since Romania says it is in favour of carrying out the Nabucco project. This way, during the eighth session of the Romanian-Kazakh Intergovernmental Joint Commission, the participating officials restated their willingness to cooperate as part of some major projects of common interest, such as the PEOP oil pipeline (Constanta-Trieste) and the Nabucco pipeline with a view to the future increase in the natural gas quantities produced by the Republic of Kazakhstan.