The exploitation of natural gas in the Black Sea cannot start earlier than 2024-2025 because the Offshore Law needs to be amended, and a broad coalition rather than the Government must do it, minister of energy Virgil Popescu said in a Facebook post quoted by Ziarul Financiar.

The ruling coalition agreed, by the ruling strategy, to amend the offshore law "in such a way as to stimulate these investments," and it will make this change "later this year," he assured.

"But I said, and we also agreed in the coalition, this will have to be done in the Parliament because we want a support as wide as possible on this issue," minister Popescu said.

The ruling coalition holds a fragile majority in Parliament, particularly when it comes to such delicate issues and past debates on these issues revealed diverging views even within parties.

In 2018, the Parliament adopted the Offshore Law, which establishes the principles for exploiting Black Sea gas.

According to the law, investors are compelled to trade 50% of gas on the Romanian stock exchange, and 25% of their employees must be Romanian.

(Photo: Virgil Popescu Facebook Page)

andrei@romania-insider.com