BusinessMagazin

Tag: energy

  • See you in ten years

    ENERGY

    Going green –  Renewable energy, of course – no one talks about anything else. This goes for Romania, too, though for a while we will not feel as much pressure to radically replace traditional energy sources with green ones as others do. What kind of energy, then? Currently, 29% of production comes from renewable sources: the high-yield hydroelectric power, which allowed Romania to look like it had complied with EU’s directions.

     

    When it comes to other types of renewable energy, Romania is the country with the lowest investments in the EU, and its luck of having hydroelectric power is up to the flow of rivers, which is dwindling, and with it so is the willingness of international organisations to accept hydropower as renewable energy. Therefore the green future of the Romanian energy is connected to wind, sun and biomass.

     

    For now, gas and coal are the preferred sources, which are highly pollutant and generate 70% of the energy production. However, ”Wind is Romania’s biggest chance for green energy,” believes Ondrejs Safar, who supervises the installation of 240 wind turbines at Fantanele Wind Farm, as part of a CEZ project to build a 600 MW installed power (equal to one nuclear reactor of Cernavod=) wind farm in Dobrogea.

    IT

    Reality of virtual reality  – The dream of smart homes and offices is still on the mind of those who imagine the evolution of technology in the next decade. Guided by technology every minute and constantly connected to the Internet, the man of the future seems like a part of an ever-expanding virtual gear. Adobe Romania’s CEO Alexandru Costin, believes that we are now at a crossroads in every fi eld and especially in IT, when the speed at which knowledge is acquired and innovation is applied has become exponential. He thinks this speed will maintain for decades from now on.
     

    TELECOM
     Universal gadget –  Over the coming years, the phone will continue its metamorphosis, from a mobile terminal we can use to talk to sort of a Swiss army knife capable of doing everything. Or at least something more than it does today. Mihnea {erbu, senior product manager of Orange Romania says, ”The phone will continue its transformation along with the technology: camera, internal memory, screen, size and uses.” Therefore we will have a portable computer on our hands: ”We will soon see a phone that will be part of the computer family, equipped with processor, graphics memory or hard drive.”

     

    LABOUR MARKET
     Fle-xi-bi-li-ty – How we will work in the future will obviously depend on the health of the world economy. Yet demand for productivity and efficiency will increase, regardless of the context. A phenomenon, though helped by the crisis, which was already a trend, is the shift from permanent employment contracts to working with independent contractors. The shift to this system will also entail adjusting internal processes of companies. Most contracts with independent contractors are signed for singular projects, which generates fl exibility both for companies – which can get top specialists without having to hire them for an indefinite period of time and for specialists, who can choose only those projects they are interested in.
     

  • Good bye, Rompetrol

    At 3 p.m. last Friday, two press releases announced the sale by Dinu Patriciu of the last 25 percent in Rompetrol. Over the following few hours, nobody would comment on the sale. Everyone was waiting for somebody else to start talking ”on the record” about one of the most eagerly awaited deals in Romania. All with whom BUSINESS Magazin tried to talk on Friday evening brought up a few common points: how much Dinu Patriciu sold for is not that important, how he did it is.

    The deal was announced by two press releases: one sent by KazMunaiGaz, whereby chairman Kayrgeldy Kabyldin said the acquisition of the last stake of Rompetrol was in line with KMGís strategy to develop abroad, and the second release came from Dinu Patriciu, who said he had decided to exercise his right to sell to KMG the remaining 25 percent stake in Rompetrol Group. That the two parties did not send a joint release says one important thing about the relationship between the Kazakhs and Dinu Patriciu. ”I believe Dinu Patriciu has never had a very good relationship with those to whom he sold the business, but I think that by selling Rompetrol, he made two masterful moves in this time of crisis,” said one of the businessmen in the petroleum world interviewed by BUSINESS Magazin.

    The price at which the sale was done is an interesting topic, too. According to sources on the market, last weekís sale was tightly connected to the sale in August 2007, when Dinu Patriciu and Phil Stephenson sold 75 percent in Rompetrol to the Kazakhs at KazMunaiGAz for 1.6 billion dollars, with the company thus valued at 2.2 billion dollars. Patriciu is the winner of the crisis twice, because with the deal sealed two years ago he checked, as he sold, before the crisis, a company whose rating has significantly gone down in the meantime. He now checkmated: he sold at a time when the crisis is in full swing and also escaped the deadline of the debts (which is June 2010). According to sources on the market, the contract initially signed by Patriciu included a mention that the sale of the 25 percent was to be done at a price at least equal to the company estimate in 2007. If we take that estimate into account, Patriciu collected approximately 533 million euros for the 25 percent. Even though he sold, Patriciu is still involved in the court case of Petromidia privatisation.

    Traducere de Loredana Fratila-Cristescu si Daniela Stoican