14th May
2007
First Dyneff petrol station of Rompetrol in France
Investments reached EUR 8 M. In 2007 the group allots EUR 40 M for ten new units
and it will use Dyneff company as a platform for future investments in France
and in Western Europe.
published in issue 3930 page 7 at 2007-05-14. The first Rompetrol petrol station
in France required investments amounting to EUR 8 M. The group intends to set
up ten more such stations in 2007 and the value of investments will reach EUR
40 M, declared for Mediafax by the President of the oil group, Dinu Patriciu (photo),
during the launching event of the first Rompetrol station in France, in Arzenes.
The petrol station sells E 85, a bio-fuel that has 85 per cent ethanol within
its structure, but it can be used only by cars especially designed for such a
fuel. Part of the fuels come from Petromidia refinery: “The bio-fuel used
by The Rompetrol Group comes from South America, Brazil and from European sources,
and I hope that we shall also produce bio-fuel in Romania in 2008, which means
bio-diesel and bio-ethanol,” according to Patriciu. Patriciu affirmed that
Petromidia would become self-sufficient in bio-fuels with the purpose of complying
with the European requirements which ask that a share of the fuels traded to be
bio-fuels.
Regarding Dyneff, Patriciu said that they would use the company bought in 2005
as a platform for the investments that the oil group will make in France and in
Western Europe. The group activities in France are EUR 2 billion worth and 30
per cent of the group turnover is achieved in Romania. For the time being, Rompetrol
does not intend to relocate the headquarters from Romania: “I am confident
that this will happen when Romania gets rid of monsters, of various bad nightmares
which it experiences. I hope they will vanish and it will soon get rid of this,”
Patriciu affirmed, without entering into details.
Rompetrol will invest, through its subsidiary Dyneff, EUR 60 M in building new
oil product storage in the French locality Port la Nouvelle. In Port la Nouvelle
Dyneff has two oil product storages. The company intends to replace one of these
storages, following urban development, so that a new objective needs to be built
in the industrial area. The construction of the new storage, to be called Dyneff
3, will be completed in 2011-2012.
Source: Nine O'Clock.
Marshal Turism invest EUR 2.5 M into a four-start
hotel in Bucharest
Marshal Turism group has officially opened on Friday, a four-star hotel downtown
Bucharest, where they have invested EUR 2.5 M for renovating the old building.
Marshal Turism hired, for five years, the hotel from National School for Political
and Administrative Sciences (SNSPA) which they have completely renovated and provided
with equipment, expecting a turnover of EUR 3 M for the first year, according
to those declared for Rompres by the group President, Ion Antonescu.
The hotel has 30 rooms, the price being EUR 130, and from among the attractions,
one could find a terrace, a grill inspired by Hilton Hotel from Maldive Islands
and the chocolate fountain. Marshal Turism intends to open another five-star hotel
in Dorobanti area. In this respect, the group bought a land with an area of 1,500
square meters and it will invest EUR 10 M into this new location.
The turnover made last year by Marshal Turism amounted to EUR 21 M, compared to
EUR 17 M in 2005, and a 30-40 per cent raise is expected for this year, according
to those specified by President Ion Antonescu.
Source: Nine O'Clock.
Bulgaria, Romania start second Danube bridge construction
Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev made the symbolic first sod for the
construction of the Danube Bridge II at Vidin-Kalafat on Sunday, reported BTA
news agency. The bridge construction is an important part of the Pan- European
Transport Corridor 4 passing from Thessaloniki through Sofia and Vidin to Romania
by providing connection to Central and Western Europe, Stanishev said at the official
ground-breaking ceremony in Vidin.
According to the prime minister, the new infrastructure project is one of the
biggest in the next years in Bulgaria. The bridge is important not only for Bulgaria
and Romania, but also for the European Union (EU), as it is definitely a bridge
of the reunion of the European continent, said the prime minister. The project
costs 236 million euros (about 318 million U.S. dollars) and is supported financially
by the EU Phare and ISPA programs, the European Investment Bank, the Frankfurt-based
development bank KfW and Agence Francaise de Developpement Development (AFD),
and co-financed by Bulgaria's Exchequer.
The new bridge will be located at the 796th km of the Danube river, linking Bulgaria's
Vidin and Romania's Kalafat. The total length of the bridge is 1,971 meters. It
will have four road lanes and a railway track. The Spanish FCC company won the
bid as the designer and contractor of part of the main bridge. The bridge is scheduled
to be constructed within 38 months. Currently, Bulgaria and Romania are connected
by a Danube bridge built in 1954, which is located in the eastern part of the
border of the two countries.
Source: Xinhua
Lower prices luring tourists to Eastern Europe
Leave it to an upstart airline sowing its post-Soviet-era oats to redefine the
word 'discount.'
With the weak dollar and strong euro blowing the medieval roof off prices in countries
such as France and Italy, I'd been thinking a lot about Eastern Europe when a
notice popped up in my inbox from Slovakia-based SkyEurope. The airline offered
to whisk travelers from London, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam to Budapest, Bratislava,
Krakow and Prague.
The deal: tickets for 7 cents. Working my keyboard like the lever on a slot machine,
I punched in some dates, and hit the jackpot - two seats on a flight from Amsterdam
to Budapest. You can guess what happened next. With taxes and a $6.50 "transaction
fee," the total came to $52.19 per ticket. Not exactly airfare for pennies,
but still a bargain, considering British Airways was quoting $146 and the train
takes 20 hours. It was just what I needed to jump-start a trip I'm beginning this
week into Hungary, and Romania and Bulgaria, the European Union's two newest members.
For adventure-seekers looking for an escape from $5 cups of coffee and hordes
of tourists, these and the other ex-Communist countries are the final frontier
for European budget travel. Things are changing fast, but for now, there are enough
cultural differences to leave you feeling as if you're not in Kansas anymore -or
Paris or Rome for that matter - and enough 21st-century mod-cons to make travel
easier than it's ever been.
Remember Europe before the euro when you had to switch currencies as often as
you changed countries? That's the way it still works in most of Central and Eastern
Europe. Even though many of the countries are now members of the EU, a move that
boosts foreign investment and makes travel easier, most haven't yet adopted the
euro as their currency (Slovenia is the exception)- a separate process that depends
on budget deficits, interest rates and inflation. The trade-off is that things
still cost less than they do in Western Europe, and the dollar still buys more.
I'll be paying in Hungarian Forint, Romanian Lei and Bulgarian Lev, but unlike
years ago, there are plenty of ATM machines and lots of hotels, shops and restaurants
take credit cards.
Communication is easier. I've tried teaching myself some Romanian. It comes out
sounding a little like Italian with a mouthful of mush. So I feel better knowing
that English has replaced Russian in the schools, and most people under 30 speak
enough to help out a traveler. Everyone has cell phones and e-mail. I used the
Internet to book a flight on Romania's Air Tarom and rooms in family owned guesthouses,
private homes, hostels and hotels.
Bloggers offered some of the best tips. Postings on VirtualTourist.com and TripAdvisor.com
yielded lots of lodging suggestions that I didn't see in guidebooks. No-frills
airlines are the Greyhound buses of Eastern Europe. Getting around is faster and
cheaper with Sky Europe, Wizz Air, Ryanair and others adding flights from London,
Paris, Amsterdam and Rome. Enterprising locals are embracing capitalism. Forget
those Cold War images of concrete high-rises and abandoned factories. Think frescoed
monasteries, ancient castles, modern cities and restored medieval towns.
It's true that the secret is out on many destinations. Prague and Budapest are
flooded with tourists. Europeans flock to Bulgaria's Black Sea coast and Montenegro
instead of the pricey Italian beach resorts, and Croatia is on everyone's radar.
I'm happy to be getting to Romania while Adam Marius still rents rooms for $25
in the old walled city of Sighisoara in Transylvania. He speaks English and built
a Web site showing the four new rooms and bathrooms he built next to the family
home in the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, the 15th-century Romanian prince known as
Dracula. Entrepreneurs such as Nicolae Prisacaru, in the farming village of Vadu
Izei near the Ukraine border, offer inexpensive travelers' services. He heads
up a community effort aimed at introducing visitors to traditional village life
in the rural Maramures, a forested corner of Transylvania where locals live and
work much the way they have for centuries.
I hired Nicolae as my guide for two days at $30 a day plus gas money. He's arranged
to pick me up at a train station, and booked rooms for me in two guesthouses ???
one a traditional wooden farmhouse owned by an artist who paints religious icons
on glass -- for $25-$30 a day per person, including meals. Of course, low prices
alone don't make a destination worthwhile. I'm happy with my $50 room in a family
owned hotel in Eger, Hungary. But I'm going there to soak in the thermal baths
and sip the Bulls Blood wine sold from cellars tucked into hillside caves. In
the Maramures, I'll explore hand-built wooden churches, visit blanket weavers,
and maybe hitch a ride into town on a farmer's horse-drawn wooden cart.
The journalist in me is looking forward to a visit to the Bulgarian mountain town
of Sliven. There I hope to meet traveling sock saleswoman Diana Beleva to whom
I loaned $25 through Kiva, a San Francisco Web-savvy nonprofit that pairs individuals
in the US and elsewhere with entrepreneurs in developing countries. Diana and
others whom Kiva helps in Sliven belong to a minority group called Roma. We know
them as Gypsies. Originally thought to have come from Egypt, the Roma (Sanskrit
for 'man' or 'husband') arrived in Turkey around 1068 as lower-caste refugees
forced out of India by Islamic armies. They made their way into Eastern Europe
in the 14th century. Some became slaves. Others traveled from town to town looking
for work as coppersmiths, entertainers or bear-tamers. Most Roma today are settled,
but segregated into poor neighborhoods called mahalas. They face job discrimination,
some turn to stealing, but many more would like to find work.
Helping to make that happen is American Peace Corps volunteer Greg Kelly. He helps
arrange the Kiva loans through REDC Bulgaria, a microfinance venture sponsored
by Hungarian-American businessman George Soros and the University of Wisconsin
School of Business. Through Kelly and REDC, Kiva has linked hundreds of "lenders"
like me with Roma trying to make a living. There's Idriz Akiof, 64. He lost his
job in the state-run light-bulb factory after the fall of Communism. Now he owns
his own barbershop where haircuts cost $1.30. Todor Beleva, Diana's brother, plans
to use $750 in new working capital to expand a firewood-delivery business he runs
with his wife, Silvia. Most tourists who come to Sliven head into the mountains
for the hiking trails and mineral springs. I'll be touring socks stalls and barber
shops, and, of course, looking forward to my stay in a $40-a-night Bulgarian guesthouse
with built-in wooden wardrobes, woven carpets and a tavern that serves roasted
lamb and rabbit.
Source: BBJ.hu
Petrom to acquire two local Royal Dutch Shell comanies
Romanian national daily Ziarul Financiar reported last week that oil company Petrom
decided to exercise its pre-emption rights to acquire a majority stake in two
local businesses of Royal Dutch Shell, Shell Gas Romania SA and Trans Gas Services
SRL, Interfax cited. "The acquisition will allow us to strengthen our position
on the LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) market in Romania," Tamas Mayer, member
of the Executive Board of Petrom, was quoted saying, adding: "This transaction
gives rise to synergies with our existing LPG business and will allow us to increase
our market share, which is now approximately 17 percent for gas cylinders distribution
and two percent for car gas."
Petrom will acquire 55.3 percent of Shell Gas Romania and 60 percent of Trans
Gas Services SRL following the decision of Shell to exit the LPG business in Romania,
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. Petrom's website
reveals that the company has already been operating on the LPG market in Romania
through its own bottling and distribution network while it had already possessed
a 44.7 percent stake in Shell Gas Romania and a 20 percent stake in Trans Gas
Services SRL.
Shell Gas Romania is the largest gas cylinder distributor in Romania, while Trans
Gas Services is a propane supplier. Petrom has 593 filling stations in Romania
and operates a total of 211 filling stations in Moldova, Bulgaria and Serbia.
Revenues of the company reached 3.7 million Euro in 2006, it was reported.
Source: New Europe News
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