Access Investments-European Union- ROMANIA

In a country with a history of almost 160 years of petroleum industry where petroleum operations have been carried out during various political and legal regimes, without being a controversial topic, neither by legal nor by social nature, the access to the petroleum blocks, in general and, in particular, to the land necessary to access the underground resources, have generated in the last years a new challenge for this industry’s operators. In addition to the technical and financial risks related to the oil and gas exploration industry, the more recent problem regarding the access to the petroleum blocks has raised the risk of projects with respect to the uncertainty of the commencement and development of the petroleum operations according to a pre-set schedule, as well as the concessionaires commitments to the Romanian state while incurring additional costs generated by the law suits to access the petroleum blocks, as opposed to relying on the customary ways of amicable direct negotiation.  In a context where, although expressly permitted by the Law no. 238/2004, petroleum law (named as follows “Petroleum Law”), the access of the titleholders of petroleum agreements (“Petroleum Agreements”) on the private property land with the scope to conduct petroleum operations, is almost impossible in the absence of an agreement with the land owner, recently the judicial practice has started to express opinions in favor of the titleholders. Therefore, the article 7 from the Petroleum Law establishes a legal servitude right over the petroleum perimeters, other than those declared of public utility, necessary for the exploration and exploitation operations as well as for any related field activities necessary in the process of exploration and exploitation, whereas the exercise of the servitude right is made against the payment of an annual rent.  Even though the legislator established this legal servitude right, frequently, in the last 3-4 years in practice and in the context of public space debates related to the insufficient or incorrectly understanding over the exploitation of shale gas, the landowners denied access to the titleholders on the blocks intending to conduct petroleum operations, claiming that the exercise of the servitude right of the titleholders represents an expropriation of the landowner.

Local realities as well as the fiscal contributions to the state budget from this industry reflect a significant decrease of the petroleum activities. There has been a decrease of activity right from the start of the exploration phase even for the very early and necessary works before the actual drilling exploration works, such as, temporary works, without negative environmental impact as the acquisition of seismic data through geophysical prospecting.