After visiting the offshore Deepwater Champion ship of company ExxonMobil, President Traian Basescu said that by 2015-2017, extraction of the gas reservoir in the Black Sea will begin and that from that moment Romania will be energy independent. Basescu said that Romanians should not expect the Black Sea reservoir operation to start immediately because for necessary investigations. He said that Romania consumed 14.2 bcm (billion cubic meters) of gas in 2011, of which 11.4 bcm came from domestic production while the rest was imported. Black Sea explorations hit gas in early February.
