BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 26. Romania is among the priority directions of SOCAR business development, not only in the area of retail operations, but now also in the transmission of Azerbaijani gas volumes in Romania and to other European markets, via Romania, Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil-Daniel Popescu said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
He noted that until now, SOCAR Romania owns a number of 66 own stations and operates 3 warehouses: Teiuș, Onești and Constanța.
“SOCAR offers an extensive range of products and services in the field of fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and bitumen trade, becoming one of the important players on the Romanian fuel distribution and petroleum product trading market. More than that, ROMGAZ and SOCAR signed in June, 2022, a MoU through which the companies propose to strengthen energy cooperation relations and to explore new collaboration opportunities in order to implement mutually beneficial projects in the energy field,” said the minister.
Also, Popescu went on to add that Romania and Azerbaijan propose to explore, based on an MoU signed in October last year between SOCAR and ROMGAZ companies, the opportunities for the joint development of a liquefied natural gas project in the Black Sea, a project that can support the strategic safety objectives in the supply of natural gas and diversification of sources for Romania, but also the potential of the Republic of Azerbaijan as an important gas supplier for Europe.
“Romania proposes to the SOCAR company to analyze the opportunities to expand the fields of activity in Romania, in the light of the new European paradigm towards obtaining energy from sources with low carbon emissions, by taking into account potential investments in electricity production using natural gas. At the same time, another direction of cooperation of interest for Romania that SOCAR could analyze is the sale of petrochemical products, manufactured at the facilities owned by SOCAR in Azerbaijan and Türkiye, on the Romanian market. In this context, the Romanian Side expressed the interest especially for chemical fertilizers, necessary for the Romanian agricultural sector,” the minister explained.
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