Germany promised gas from the Black Sea

Austrian OMV plans to receive the first gas from the Black Sea in 2027 and has signed a contract for the supply of fuel to Germany.

"The Austrian company OMV has signed a deal to supply German Uniper with gas from its Black Sea project from 2027," Reuters reports, citing three sources.

According to them, the five-year contract is designed to supply 1.4 billion cubic meters per year.

"The total volume of the contract is about 1.5% of gas imports to Germany in 2024 and will be the first deal underlying the long—awaited deepwater project, more than a decade after gas was first discovered in the Romanian part of the Black Sea," Reuters added.

The Romanian enterprise of the Austrian company OMV Petrom owns half of the Romanian project, and its production is expected to reach a 10-year peak of 8 billion cubic meters per year.

In 2027, the European Union plans to completely abandon Russian gas. However, whether he will be able to do this is still unknown. Since January 1, Ukraine has stopped the transit of Russian gas to Europe. However, it accounted for about a quarter of all deliveries and less than half of exports of pipeline Russian gas to Europe.

As EADaily reported, in the second half of November, the Transocean Barents semi-submersible drilling platform, which was contracted by the Austrian OMV, arrived in Constanta, Romania. In January, it will begin a drilling campaign on the Deepwater Neptune block, whose reserves are estimated at 100 billion cubic meters of gas.

A large deep-water deposit was discovered in 2011 and planned to be launched in the late 2020s. However, the Romanian parliament tightened the tax legislation for oil and gas companies, and OMV postponed the adoption of a final investment decision indefinitely. In 2022-2023, the tax regime was changed. OMV reports that they plan to invest 4 billion euros together with Romgas and receive the first gas in 2027.

Annual production is estimated at 3 billion cubic meters. On the one hand, this will be the first time for Europe that a large field has been put into operation over the past few decades. On the other hand, in Romania itself, production at old fields is declining.