Rompetrol petroleum group, which is 100% controlled by Kazakh state-owned company KazMunaiGaz, could also start to sell electrical power and natural gas at some point, besides petroleum and petroleum products, according to the plans of the new owners of the group.
"We may expand the trading operations to other products such as natural gas, electrical power or coal in the future. We're not ruling out anything," says Alibek Zhilbayev, head of Rompetrol's trading division, and one of the new Kazakh managers that replaced most of those who built the Rompetrol group together with businessman Dinu Patriciu over ten years.
Through the division he runs, Zhilbayev oversees about half of Rompetrol's business, which stood at some 8.7 billion dollars last year, supplying petroleum and petroleum products to the entire group and third parties.
In addition, as of 2011, the Petromidia refinery, Rompetrol's core asset will start running on Kazakh petroleum 100% once the refining capacity expansion works have been completed.
This year Rompetrol will sell about 8 million tonnes of petroleum and petroleum products, most of which to the foreign markets where the group operates, and to third parties, a segment that has significantly increased once Rompetrol became part of KazMunaiGaz's portfolio.
Whereas in 2007-2008 sales to third parties that were not included in Rompetrol's structure stood at several hundred tonnes of petroleum and petroleum products, after takeover by KazMunaiGaz, this volume has tripled to about 1.6 million tonnes.
The head of the trading division of Rompetrol says that volumes sold this year were close to those in the past years, as the decline on some markets caused by the crisis was offset by the closing of a number of European refineries.
As for 2010 estimates, Zhilbayev is reserved and says the segment of petroleum and pet
