ROMANIA: The Rompetrol gas station network has grown fourfold since it was bought by the Kazakhs
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The number of fuel distribution points in the Rompetrol network reached 1,328 after the first nine months of 2024, 16 more than a year ago and four times more than when Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company, KazMunayGas, took over the Rompetrol group.
The number of fuel distribution points increased fourfold in September 2024 compared to September 2007, reaching from 376 to 1,328 units (own stations, partner stations, mobile stations: express, internal bases), data from the oil company shows.
“As a natural consequence, the quantities sold by Rompetrol Rafinare and Rompetrol Downstream – the group’s retail division in Romania – also increased, but most of the fuels produced (around two-thirds) are directed to the Romanian market, through its own and partners’ distribution stations,” says Florian Pop, CEO of Rompetrol Rafinare, the company that manages the refineries in Romania and the distribution network.
Compared to September 2023, the Rompetrol network increased by 16 sales points.
Rompetrol Downstream reported a substantial increase in volumes sold through stations in the first nine months of this year. “Sales in the retail segment recorded an increase of 8% and reached 910,000 tons of fuels in Romania, the main market for the products obtained in the Petromidia refinery. The growth was determined by the sales strategy through which Rompetrol directs most of its products to the domestic market,” Rompetrol Rafinare shows, in its financial results report after the first nine months of 2024.
The company focused on sales through its own network, which are more profitable, given that the wholesale market in Romania seems to have also been supplied with cheaper, imported fuels, possibly from non-EU sources and made including from Russian crude oil – I have previously written about fuel imports from India and Turkey.
“Wholesale sales decreased by 38%, reaching 386,000 tons, in the first 9 months of 2024. The decreasing quantities sold were influenced both by the failure of the Petromidia refinery to operate at optimal capacity in the first part of the year, but also by the increasing volumes for finished products from outside the EU, at low prices, compared to products obtained in European refineries,” the company said.
The company has implemented a new concept of distribution stations, especially for the gas stations it has located – and will continue to build – on the highway network. The new service areas come with larger gas stations. The stations are equipped with 3 multi-product pumps for cars, 1 fast diesel pump for large vehicles, an AdBlue pump, a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) filling skid and 2 fast and high-power electric charging stations, each with 2 charging stations.
They also offer facilities such as shops, cafes, a restaurant, spaces dedicated to mothers and people with disabilities, payment terminals for vignette/invoices/bank transfers/insurance and parking spaces for cars and trucks.
The two new Rompetrol stations were designed internally and built in line with the development of the “hei” brand, an umbrella concept with distinct lines of services – hei coffee&gourmet for assisted serving with restaurant-style dishes (Cristian station on the right) and hei&coffee for coffee, pastries, sandwiches, the company said when it inaugurated one of the new stations of this kind, on the A1 motorway.
