Kazakhstan, Astana, Feb. 4 / Trend A.Maratov /
The list of the priority countries for Romania's subsidiary of KMG, Rompetrol oil concern, includes Turkey and Ukraine, Chief Financial Officer of the Rompetrol Group Dmitry Grigoryev said in an interview with Trend.
"The priority countries for our company are Georgia, little Bulgaria, Turkey and perhaps Ukraine," he said.
The Turkish market is considered as the most promising for Rompetrol.
"But we do not have enough volume for Turkey. The Turkish market is growing strongly. It is the most expensive in the world. It is known that Turkey shares the first place with United Kingdom with the highest price for oil products. Moreover, there is a rapid economic growth," he said.
Regarding the prospects with respect to Ukraine, the opinion is ambiguous.
"The Ukrainian market is potentially very attractive in terms of its capacity; moreover, its convenient geographical location, including the import via the Black Sea, as well as to Turkey. This is one of the key markets where we would like to develop, but it is unstable," he said.
He said that today the volume of Rompetrol oil products supplies to Ukraine is insignificant. Only 5 percent of the total oil processing is received by the company from its oil refinery Petromidia.
"The Ukrainian market in the current situation is rather uncivilized. There is a problem with the smuggling of large amounts of oil products from Belarus, Russia, and the Black Sea coast. The prices on the Ukrainian market are not so attractive for us as we would like," he said.
Moreover, the situation with its own refineries in Ukraine is ambiguous. Today, all 6 plants are loaded by only 20 percent of its capacity. The government of this country should protect the domestic producer of oil products.
He said that the Romanian subsidiary of Kazakh KMG has not considered its plans to move on - deep into the Balkans yet.
"These countries have strong interests of such Russian companies as Lukoil and Rosneft," he said.
He said that today Rompetrol sees good prospects for itself on the Romanian market, which has the potential for further development.
"The concentration of cars per person in Romania is one to 8. This figure is almost 7 times less than in Germany, i.e., Romania's potential is very high. Moreover, a convenient location of Petromidia refinery on the Black Sea gives us an advantage, he said.
He said that Rompetrol ranks second on the Romanian retail market after the state-owned company Petrom.
The Rompetrol Group NV is a 100-percent subsidiary of KMG Processing and Marketing.
Rompetrol is a large holding company. Most of its operations and assets are located in France, Romania, Spain, and southeastern Europe. The group is active primarily in refining and marketing downstream, with additional operations in exploration, production and other services for the oil industry. It owns two oil refineries (Petromidia and Vega), and some 630 gas stations in Europe (Romania, France, Spain, Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Albania, and Georgia).
The company owns a 25 percent share of the petroleum product retail sales market in Romania, a 3.5 percent share of the market in France, and a 1.5-percent stake of the market in Spain. Rompetrol works in 13 countries in service and trading.