Romania must take control over the Romanian local company of Russia’s Lukoil to ensure the national energy system is stable, international sanctions are enforced and jobs are protected, Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan said on Tuesday.
Lukoil has 320 petrol stations in Romania, operates the country’s third largest refinery and holds offshore exploration rights in a section of the Black Sea. Ivan did not elaborate which assets the state must take control over or how.
Lukoil, along with Rosneft, was targeted by US sanctions linked to the more than three-and-a-half-year-old war in Ukraine. Those sanctions are to take effect on November 21, and Ivan said Romania would not seek an extension.
"I will say it clearly: I will not request an extension of the November 21 deadline given by US authorities," Ivan said in a social media post late on Tuesday.
"Moreover, I will support fully applying sanctions initiated by the United States at the level of the entire European Union."
Lukoil’s Petrotel refinery accounts for about a quarter of the Romanian fuels market. Former energy ministers have said the country’s national fuel stocks could make up for any missing supplies until new sources were found.
Ivan said the energy ministry was working on creating legislation which will ensure sanctions are enforced while activity at the Petrotel refinery and commercial fuel sales continued without hurting the supply of the national fuels market. He did not specify what laws needed to be amended.
Experts have said Romania does not have the institutional strength required to manage a refinery, while the country is also struggling to lower the highest budget deficit in the European Union.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Chris Reese and Leslie Adler)
