OilVoice - Romgaz to Invest Over 250 million lei in the Company's Gas Storage Facility in Sarmasel

Romgaz to Invest Over 250 million lei in the Company's Gas Storage Facility in Sarmasel

Thursday, October 23, 2008

During the next 2-3 years, Romgaz plans to invest over 250 million lei in the company's gas storage facility in Sarmasel, where it will build a new compressing station, according to the company's Technical Manager, Marin Zamfirescu.

"We will invest over 250 million lei in the Sarmasel gas depot in the next 2-3 years, to build a new compressing station, in order to reach a storage capacity of 1,3-1,5 billion cubic metres / year. At present, the depot has a capacity of 700 million cubic metres per year, "explained Zamfirescu.

Moreover, the investment in the Sarmasel gas storage facility also entails mounting a drying station to improve the quality of gas, to increase the well pattern and to modernise the surface infrastructure.

Also, the company will invest 150 million lei in 2009, in the increase of storage capacity at the Urziceni storage depot, where a compressing station is to be built. The Urziceni depot will have a total storage capacity of 300 million cubic metres of gas / year.

According to company estimates, the total storage capacity of Romgaz will increase, at all its storage facilities, from 2.6 billion cubic metres of gas to nearly 4 billion cubic metres of gas, until 2013. According to the technical director of Romgaz, there are two types of gas in the depots: working gas (which now amounts to 2.6 billion cubic metres) and buffer gas.

The three Romgaz facilities near the capital (at Balaceanca, Urziceni and Bilciuresti) can provide, for example, Bucharest's daily natural gas consumption. The Capital's natural gas consumption amounts to 14-16 million cubic metres of gas/day during the cold season.

Romgaz operates six underground natural gas storage facilities of its own, located at: Sarmasel, Cetatea de Balta (Transylvania Basin), Bilciuresti, Balaceanca, Urziceni and Ghercesti (in the extra-Carpathian area). The company also owns storage depots in association at Târgu Mures (with the Depomures company) and Nades (with the Amgaz company).

The largest storage depot in Romania, in terms of storage capacity (1.3 billion cubic meters per cycle), is at Bilciuresti (40 km NNW of the Capital), and located at a depth of 2.000 m.

Romgaz's majority shareholder is the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which owns 85.01% of the shares, while the remaining 14.99% of shares belong to the Proprietatea Fund.

The company had a production of about five billion cubic meters of natural gas, in 2007, about one third of the country's annual consumption.

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