Romania's OMV Petrom to Invest 32 Mln Euro in Independenta Oil Field in 2015-2016

Romanian oil and gas group OMV Petrom [BSE:SNP] said on Friday it plans to invest some32 million euro ($35 million) in the redevelopment of Independenta oil field in the southeastern county of Galati in the 2015-2016 period. The total investment required for the FRD Independenta Phase 1 project to unlock additional oil reservesstands at 42 million euro, of which around10 million euro were invested in 2012-2014,the company said in a statement.

The project entered execution phase in 2014,aftera number of specific studies were performed.

"Continued investments in Upstream are essential for ensuring oil and gas production for Romania,given that we operate a portfolio of fields with an average annual natural decline rate of around 10%,"Gabriel Selischi, member of OMV Petrom Executive Board, responsible for Upstream, said in the statement.

However, this year the investments will reflect deteriorated market conditions and volatile environment, he added.

Independentais a mature oil field, in production since 1959, and isone of the most important fields in OMV Petrom’s portfolio, ensuring in 2014 around 7% of the company’s oil production in Romania.

The purpose of this field redevelopment is to increase oil production from Independenta field by drilling in previously non-developed areas. The project consists of drilling 13 horizontal wells, construction and modernisation of collecting and metering points and the construction of a tie-in pipeline between them. Four of the 13 wells have already been drilled.

At the end of 2014 , OMV Petrom had in its portfolio 12 redevelopment projects in development phase, covering gas and oil fields, both onshore and offshore. The additional recoverable reserves corresponding to the 12 projects amount to around 130 millionbarrels of oil equivalent.

Blue chip OMV Petrom, part of Austria's OMV group,is the largest integrated oil and gas group in Southeastern Europe, with oil and gasproduction of approximately 66 millionboein 2014. The grouphasarefining capacity of 4.5million oftonnes peryear andoperatesan 860 MW high efficiency power plant and a 45 MW wind park. It hadsome780filling stationsin Romania andneighboringcountries at end-2014.

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