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Romania Fossil Fuels
The late 1980s saw the rapid depletion of Romania's
extensive
reserves of fossil fuels, including oil, natural gas,
anthracite,
brown coal, bituminous shale, and peat. These hydrocarbons
are
distributed across more than 63 percent of the country's
territory.
The major proven oil reserves are concentrated in the
southern and
eastern Carpathian foothills--particularly Prahova, Arges,
Olt,
and Bacau judete, with more recent discoveries in
the
southern Moldavian Plateau, the Danube Plain, and Arad
judet
(see
fig. 1). Despite an ambitious program of
offshore exploration, begun in 1976, significant deposits
in the
Black Sea continental shelf had yet to be discovered as of
the late
1980s. Most of the country's natural gas deposits are
found in the
Transylvanian Plateau. The Southern Carpathians and the
Banat hold
most of the hard coal reserves, while brown coal is
distributed
more widely across the country, with major deposits in
Bacau and
Cluj judete, the southeastern Carpathian foothills,
and the
Danube Plain.
Total oil reserves in 1984 were estimated at 214
million tons.
Western analysts interpreted consistently lower output
figures and
Romania's intense search for improved oil-recovery
technology as
evidence that reserves were being depleted rapidly. By the
mid1980s , comparatively little oil was being burned for heat
and
electricity generation. Most of the domestically produced
crude was
being used as feedstock for refining into valuable
gasoline,
naphtha, and other derivatives.
As oil's share of the energy balance was declining
during the
1970s and 1980s, natural gas and coal assumed increasing
prominence. In the mid-1970s, Romania's natural gas
reserves--the
most extensive in Eastern Europe--were estimated at
between 200 and
240 billion cubic meters. This resource was all the more
valuable
because of its high methane content of 98 to 99.5 percent.
Natural
gas and gas recovered with crude oil fueled about half of
the
country's thermoelectric power plants and provided
feedstock for
the chemical industry. Falling natural gas output figures
in the
1980s suggested that this valuable resource also was being
depleted. Romanian experts themselves predicted that
reserves would
be exhausted by 2010. The country had to begin importing
natural
gas from the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s. Annual imports
had
reached 2.5 billion cubic meters by 1986 and were expected
to rise
to about 6 billion cubic meters after 1989.
Although total coal reserves were estimated at 6
billion tons
in the mid-1970s, much of this amount was low-quality
brown coal
containing a high percentage of noncombustible material.
Only a
fraction of the steel industry's considerable demand for
coking
coal could be covered by domestic sources.
Data as of July 1989
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