According to the contract, the consortium commits itself to build and deliver an electrical power plant by September 2011, which will use natural gas as its fuel.

The two parties are also negotiating a maintenance contract for this plant. “Petrom will become an important player on the electricity market, as it will deliver some 8-9 percent of electricity produced in Romania by 2012,” said one of the members of Petrom’s Board of Directors, Gerald Kappes.

Some 20 percent of the plant’s capacity will be used to cover Petrom’s consumption, with the rest to be sold on the Romanian electricity market. The General Electric-Metka consortium was selected by Petrom following an auction that lasted some seven months.