The Neptun Deep project is on schedule, and if everything goes as it should, we want to have the first drillings by the end of this year, the Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja told a Monday’s press conference reviewing one year of mandate.

„The Neptun Deep project is on schedule. Both Romgaz and OMV Petrom have made all the necessary efforts to obtain the approvals, in order to be able to make the contracts. From the data we have, practically all the contracts are signed at this moment and we want to have the first drillings there by the end of this year, if everything goes as it should,” Burduja stated.

He also mentioned other major projects from the Ministry of Energy’s nuclear program, namely the construction of Units 3 and 4 at the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant.

„You will see very soon good news related to this from the European Commission. Then we are talking about the submission of an offer by a consortium that was formed for Units 3 and 4 (…) This consortium submitted an offer, it is being analyzed and there is a stage of negotiation of the final terms. We want to bring the procedure to the end in the shortest possible time”, emphasized the minister of energy.

As to the Green Corridor, namely the direct current cable from Azerbaijan-Georgia under the Black Sea to Romania-Hungary, Sebastian Burduja emphasized that this project is at the feasibility study stage.

„It is very important that in the negotiations between the four parties, Romania obtained the hosting of this project company – so the headquarters of the project company will be in Romania – and this confirms the leading role that Romania has assumed. Of course, together with the other three states I remind you that this green energy corridor is also important from the perspective of energy security, we connect with Azerbaijan – Georgia, but also from the perspective of the evacuation of power from the Dobrogea region the electricity transport infrastructure and this East-West interconnector, as I said, the portion on the territory of Romania is also at the stage of the feasibility study”, he added.

Last but not least, Burduja also referred to the discussions with the Canadian side that Nuclearelectrica has for the production of medical isotopes at the Cernavoda Power Plant, in the context of the re-engineering process.

AGERPRES