Rompetrol Rafinare Constanţa (RRC), a company member of the Rompetrol Group, paid at the end of last week over RON 148 million (approximately EUR 40.2 million) to the Romanian state budget, representing the annual interest to the convertible bonds issued by RRC in 2003 in favor of the Romanian Ministry of Finances. Just like every year, Rompetrol paid such interest before the legal term, i.e. September 30.
Until present, the total level of the interest paid by Rompetrol Rafinare to the Romanian State Budget amounts to over EUR 150 million. The evolution of the EURIBOR indicator determined an increase of the interest value paid annually by the company, of approximately 80%, from EUR 22.2 million in 2004 to EUR 40.2 million in 2008.
Totally amounting to EUR 571 million, the bonds issued in 2003 are due on September 30, 2010 and bear an EURIBOR annual interest (Euro Interbank Offered Rate) plus 1.5%. The bonds shall be converted into RRC shares unless the issuer redeems them prior to the due date.
The issuance of convertible bonds was enacted in 2003 and subsequently approved by the Parliament and promulgated by the Presidency, being the most viable method to recover the historical debts registered by the Petromidia refinery before its privatization to the Rompetrol Group in 2001. Also, the measure was validated by the Competition Council, thus confirming that it did not represent a state aid.
From the privatization until now, the total value of the taxes paid by the company to the state budget and other special funds amounts to approximately USD 4.7 billion.
From 2001 up to present, Rompetrol Rafinare registered an increasing trend of its activities, the quantities of processed raw materials increasing from 1.15 million in 2000, before the takeover, to over 3.8 million tones in 2007. In the first semester of the year, the company registered a historical record of 2.3 million tones of processed raw materials.