The Austrian oil, gas and chemical group OMV has given the green light for a multi-billion euro gas project in the Black Sea. In the next few years, OMV and its Romanian subsidiary Petrom announced on Wednesday that they would invest four billion euros in the development of the deep-sea project together with the Romanian state Romgaz, with the costs being shared equally. The project, which goes by the name “Neptun Deep”, is one of the most important natural gas deposits in the European Union (EU) and is intended to make Romania less dependent on Russian gas supplies. The first gas is expected in 2027.
Stockbrokers reacted enthusiastically: the OMV share rose 1.7 percent to EUR 39.34 on the Vienna Stock Exchange. Criticism hails from environmentalists. “As the climate crisis escalates, OMV is investing billions in a fossil crime that will cause at least as many greenhouse gases as all of Austria will in two and a half years,” said Marc Dengler, climate expert at Greenpeace in Austria. The project is also a threat to biodiversity in the Black Sea. Greenpeace fears damage to reefs because the pipeline connecting the gas field to the mainland runs through a nature reserve. The capitalism critics of the Attac organization are also protesting against the project. The fossil dependency will thus be cemented for decades.
According to OMV, the Neptune Deep block in the Black Sea has an area of 7500 square kilometers and is located about 160 kilometers offshore at a depth of between 100 and 1000 meters. The company estimates the potential at around 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The plateau production will be about eight billion cubic meters per year over a period of almost ten years, Petrom said. So far, according to OMV, more than 1.5 billion euros have been invested in the project for exploration and evaluation. The project still has to be approved by the Romanian authorities for natural resources.
“Thanks to Neptun Deep, Romania will become the largest natural gas producer in the EU and will provide a reliable and secure source of energy for the region. At the same time, it will strengthen our group’s position in the Black Sea region and in Southeastern Europe,” said OMV CEO Alfred Stern. OMV Petrom expects the project to increase the company’s operating profit (EBIT) by half in 2030. OMV reported the gas find in the Black Sea back in 2012, but the project was politically delayed for a long time. In addition, the initial partner, the US oil giant ExxonMobil, jumped off. Romgaz took over half of the project for more than a billion dollars. The outbreak of war in the Ukraine and the energy crisis gave momentum to the project.