BUCHAREST, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Romania's Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said on Wednesday that his country can achieve energy independence in no more than five years.
"Concrete action has been taken and we are confident that in no more than five years we will be able to become truly independent in terms of energy," the prime minister told participants in the Romanian Business Leaders' Summit 2022.
According to him, all related projects need to address two very important issues: the development of new electricity generation capacities and the improvement of the electricity transmission infrastructure.
Referring to gas resources, Ciuca stressed the importance of the Offshore Law, which was adopted by the country's Parliament on Wednesday and which aims to spur Black Sea natural gas investments.
"We will thus create the predictability and the possibility to proceed with the investments in the exploitation of both offshore and onshore resources," he said, adding that at the end of June, the first gas molecule extracted from the Black Sea will enter the system. The Midia Gas Development Project is scheduled to be operational next month with an annual delivery capacity of one billion cubic meters.
Ciuca said that Romanian integrated oil company OMV Petrom and natural gas producer Romgaz are scheduled to complete their natural gas exploration and production projects in the Black Sea by the beginning of 2027, which would enable the country to supply gas to the national economy and even to export it.
With a share of imports from Russia at 15.5 percent for natural gas, Romania is among the few European states that could manage with the quantity of gas that they have to cover national consumption. ■