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The Romanian gas market has a long history and is one of the oldest markets in Europe. The country already produced natural gas at the beginning of the 20th century. As a consequence of this, the transportation and distribution infrastructure is fairly well developed throughout the country and natural gas was used intensively in the industrial sector much earlier than in other European countries. Peak production was reached in the mid 1980s with approximately 38 billion cubic metres per annum. Declining production rates coupled with increasing demand encouraged Romania to import natural gas - mainly from Russia. Today the country imports about a third of its natural gas demand.
Since the changes in the political system at the end of the 1980s the Romanian state and the Romanian economy went through a major restructuring process, which in turn led to a large drop in the demand for gas. This process has now stabilized after bottoming out in 2002 and is stable.
Natural Gas in Romania - Market Situation:
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