The government has declassified the contracts with Chevron

According to documents published Thursday by the National Agency for Mineral Resources(ANMR) , Chevron has concession rights on perimeters of Dobrogea for a period of 30 years, which may be extended for another 15 years.

However, if Chevron finds gas and oil, it will pay royalties of between 3.5 percent and 13 percent of the output.

This level of royalties is unique for all companies due to the privatization contract of Petrom and is set out by the end of 2014.

Figures that Chevron Company must invest have remained secret in documents presented by the National Authority for Mineral Resources.

Although some documents still preserve classified information and the pages presented by the National Authority for Mineral Resources contain data covered with gray in tables showing investments that Chevron should do, these could be easily viewed using specialized software.

Figures showing the debts that Chevron Company must pay to Romania were made visible from several sites, for instance Hotnews.ro.

All documents are classified as secret service.

Prime Minister Ungureanu said at Warsaw that it has been received the approval for declassification of Chevron Company concession contracts.

Contracts were made public on the website of the National Authority for Mineral Resources, but these will not contain commercial terms that the company wanted to keep confidential.

The Government has approved on 20 March three shale gas agreements of development and mining exploration in three perimeters of Dobrogea (south-east) for Chevron Company Romania. The decisions to approve the agreements were published in the Official Gazette of March 28.

The three agreements between Chevron and the National Authority for Mineral Resources refer to 18-Vama Veche perimeters EX, EX-19 EX-17 Adamclisi and Costinesti.

The Chevron Country Manager for Romania, Tom Holst, said in early April that the decision of agreements secrecy with Chevron for the perimeters of Dobrogea belonged to Romanian government.

"Chevron has an exploration license in Barlad and the Government has given us three exploration licenses in the region of Dobrogea. The secrecy agreements decision for perimeters of Dobrogea belonged to Romanian government, it was ANMR’s decision, we did not ask for it. We follow the law in Romania and ANMR’s decision", said Chevron official.

The Ministry of Environment gave notice to the petroleum agreements, as these contain obligations that vise the environmental concerns.

The Ministry of Environment stated that, under these agreements, conditions are set up for environmental compliance and water management that Chevron Romania Holding BV must comply.

It also includes measures to reduce the environmental impact, to repair the damage if it occurs and also environmental remediation obligations after completing the operation.

The agreements provide an initial phase of exploration, which includes a mandatory step in order to be made in seismic prospecting and geochemical analyzes.

In order to carry out ,the exploration is not necessary to obtain an environmental accord with the impact assessment following the procedure.

Depending on the result of prospecting, the exploration can be done to see if there are economically exploitable resources.

To achieve the exploration, it is necessary the consent of the environmental authorities.

After the exploration stage, if economically exploitable resources are identified, they will proceed to development and exploitation phases.

After the approval of these oil agreements, Chevron Romania Holding BV has to conduct first of all the seismic exploration, then the exploitation in order to see if there are economically exploitable resources and ultimately, it can pass to operating phase.


Translated by Alexandra-Diana Mircea
MTTLC, Bucharest University