Rompetrol Georgia has opened three new fuel distribution stations

Bucharest - 31 mai 2012 - This year, Rompetrol Group continues to extend the fuel distribution network in Georgia, after opening in 2011, a number of 11 new stations. To this end, the local subsidiary of the Group completed, in the first quarter of the year, the construction of three new gas stations, the national network currently having 68 fuel distribution points.

“Consolidating and increasing the presence of Rompetrol products within the Black Sea area is our objective of the next period, and the platform created by the Group in countries such as Moldova, Bulgaria, Georgia, Ukraine, will ensure the development of the company in order to reach this goal. Moreover, the company’s strategy is in full agreement with the ever-growing Georgian economy, which is reflected also on the specialized market, through the competition environment and macroeconomic conditions (taxation, investments, etc), but also thorough regulations such as the absence of bio-components from fuels or of mandatory levels of sulphur concentrations (Euro 4 Norms)”, stated Titov Buzescu, Retail Vice President, Rompetrol Group.

The 3 gas stations are part of a project aimed at developing a franchised distribution system, started in 2009, and they are located in Poti, Batumi and Gachiani, close to Tbilisi. The relevant works had in view to align the stations to the Group’s quality and safety standards, by modernizing equipment and arranging the visual identification elements of the Rometrol brand.

Apart from the fuel network, the company carried out wholesale activities through the fuel storehouse in Tbilisi, modernized further to investments worth approximately USD 1 million, as well as through the facilities for unloading oil products in Batumi port.

Rompetrol entered the Georgian market at the end of 2005, and in 2011 it reached a turnover of around USD 200 millions there, the same level being estimated to be obtained this year as well. At the same time, the quantity of fuel sold by the company increased by 7.5% as compared to the level of 2010, reaching a volume of 150,000 tons of fuel.

Rompetrol Group is fully held by the national oil and gas company KazMunayGas (KMG) based in Kazakhstan, which runs its activities in 12 countries, most assets and operations being located in France, Romania, Spain and South-Eastern Europe. In the fuel distribution segment, the Group currently operates over 1,000 fuelling stations in Romania, the Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria, Georgia, France, Spain and the Ukraine, and intends to extend its activities in Turkey and further in the Ukraine.

KazMunayGas holds, as of 2008, the operator of the oil terminal located in Batumi port, Georgia, with an annual transit capacity of 15 million tons of crude oil, and recently Kazmortransflot, the national company for maritime transportation, part of KMG, has extended, by means of the construction/acquisition of two Aframax oil tankers (115,000 tdw), its crude oil - petroleum products transportation operations in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

Furthermore, KMG is a shareholder of Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), the operator of the crude oil transportation pipeline (length – 1,510 km, transit capacity – 28.2 million tons every year) extending from the fields of oil reserves located in Western Kazakhstan to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, Russia. After completing the necessary pipeline extension works, a CPC capacity of 67 million tons of crude oil per year is expected to be obtained, out of which 50 millions from Kazakhstan’s resources. CPC is owned by Russia in proportion of 31%, Kazakhstan 19%, while other operators have the rest.

Communications and Public Relations Department

The Rompetrol Group

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