Romanian President Traian Basescu summoned a council in charge of safety and defense to debate energy security, power sales and the state's energy assets and companies, including oil and gas company Petrom SA.
The decision was to make the contracts made during the Petrom privatization public and to analyze them by the state's institutions, including the General Prosecutor's office. Parts of the Petrom sale that weren't so far entirely made public refer to low tax allowances and constant oil-extraction royalties granted by the former government to OMV regardless of fluctuations in the international price of oil, for a 10-year period. OMV was offered to contribute from the company's profit to a special fund that would subsidize the price of gas to households until the end of 2008. If refused, the contribution to the fund might become mandatory.
Our view: It is very possible that government will consider the contracts on royalties and tax allowances as “not appropriate” however it not likely that they could be cancelled. More probable is that State will demand some kind of compensation, which was already indicated for OMV. Until no further details on the way and amounts of subsidizing are known, we expect the neutral market reaction to the news.