Europe’s upstream segment has two main challenges – environment-related long-term objectives that gradually narrow down oil companies’ maneuvering ability in terms of where/what they can drill and deficit-ridden governments trying to squeeze as much out of their domestic production as it can get. Whilst most of Western Europe, with its shale drilling bans and forced production phase-outs, gradually started to tilt towards the first variant, Romania is one of the rare examples for the latter option. It would seem that with its 2018 so-called Offshore law Romania has buried itself deep enough already to understand the burning need to render drilling profitable again, yet here we go again, Bucharest is voluntarily constraining the number of partners it can work with. And all this (sadly) takes place against the background of ExxonMobil leaving Romania’s most promising offshore project. The Romanian government put forward a draft bill this March, with the […]