The oil and gas reserves of the biggest Romanian company, Petrom, are currently worth 9.53 billion dollars (7.1 billion euros), and are the most valuable asset of the company, reveals an analysis report of the oil sector in Central and Eastern Europe put together by Austria's Raiffeisen bank. The evaluation is conservative, the bank's analysts say, with the reserves possibly worth more.
The two refineries of Petrom are appraised at 2.3 billion euros by the Raiffeisen analysts, who also take into account the increase in the refining capacity announced by the company for Petrobrazi.
Petrom's petrol stations are worth another 400 million euros.
Petrom has 789 million barrels in oil reserves at the moment, while the proved natural gas reserves amount to 646 million barrels of oil equivalent.
The Raiffeisen analysts took into account a value of 8 dollars per barrel for the oil reserves and of 5 dollars per barrel of oil equivalent for this assessment. The oil reserves are therefore put at 6.3 billion dollars, while the gas reserves should be worth 3.2 billion dollars.
The hydrocarbon reserves of the company are located 95% in Romania and 5% in deposits in Russia and Kazakhstan that Petrom leased.
OMV, Petrom's' majority shareholder controls the biggest hydrocarbon reserves in the region, 2.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, about two thirds of which, 1.4 billion boe through Petrom. Far behind are the Hungarians at MOL and the Croats at INA, with approximately 300 million barrels each.
The Eastern European oil market tends to become increasingly more integrated, both in terms of operations and in terms of ownership structure of companies.
Petrom, held by the Austrians at OMV, could become a component of a powerful regional group, now that OMV has requested the start of negotiations to launch a takeover bid for MOL, after having doubled their stake in MOL to 18% through transactions on the Budapest Stock Exchange. Others interested in MOL, according to information on the international market, could be Russia's Gazprom and Lukoil.
In their assessment of Petrom's reserves, Raiffeisen analysts took into account both "proved and probable reserves", which represent a conservative estimate of the hydrocarbon reserves of a specific company, unlike the "proved, probable and possible reserves", which represent an optimistic estimate.
A conservative scenario was also used in forecasting the trend of the oil barrel, which is estimated to reach 53 dollars in 2009, from 70 dollars at the moment, while other analysts on the market see the oil quotes continuing to grow on long term.
Petrom's hydrocarbon output amounted to 204,000 boe a day last year, down about 5% compared with the previous year.
An oil barrel is currently trading for about 70 dollars on the international markets. The sale of the oil drilled from Petrom's reserves entails substantial drilling and transport expenses. Cutting drilling costs is, after all, one of the goals of the restructuring process the company is undergoing.
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