the State, with companies such as ‘
Salrom’ ( the national salt producer), ‘
SNAM’ ( the national company for mineral
waters), the operators in coal and
metalliferous mining sector being stateowned.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Romania
became one of only ten countries
producing offshore oil-drilling rigs. In
1988 seven such platforms were
operating in the Black Sea under the
supervision of the Constanta-based
Petromar enterprise to develop
hydrocarbon reserves in the continental
shelf.
‘ In the 1970s, Romania invested heavily
in developing an outsized oil-refining
industry just as domestic petroleum
production was beginning to decline and
the world market price for crude was
skyrocketing. Some observers estimated
that by 1980 the country was losing as
much as US$900,000 per day by
exporting oil products derived from
imported crude. But because these
products found a ready market in the
West–they accounted for 40 percent of
exports to the West in the late 1980s–
Romania continued largescale processing
of imported crude to earn hard currency.
By 1988 domestic crude output had fallen
to 9.4 million tons, while refining capacity
stood at some 30 to 33 million tons
annually. To k eep the refineries running,
ever larger volumes of crude had to be
imported–first from members of the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), but after the outbreak
of the Iran-Iraq War, from the Soviet
Union. Soviet crude deliveries reached
about 6 million tons in 1986. Under the
terms of a barter arrangement, Romania
was to receive at least 5 million tons of
Soviet crude annually during the 1986-90
period in exchange for oil-drilling
equipment and food products. ‘