The Government and U.S. oil and gas company ExxonMobil have concluded a strategic partnership agreement, which was signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and Director of ExxonMobil’s Budapest Office Romke Noordhuis on Friday in Budapest.
Following the signing ceremony, the Minister highlighted that ExxonMobil will be playing an important role in shaping Hungary’s future in view of the fact that not only can it help highly-trained Hungarian workers make a living at home here in Hungary, but its gas industry activities will also be reinforcing the security of the country’s energy supply.
The company has acquired the rights to a significant Black Sea gas field, and will be affording Hungary the opportunity to also acquire natural gas via Romania from 2022, providing the neighbouring country also fulfils its commitments with relation to the project, he added.
In reply to a question, Mr. Szijjártó recalled that the Romanian party has undertaken to establish an interconnector with an annual capacity of 4.4 billion cubic metres for the shipment of natural gas from beneath the Black Sea, the capacities of which have been acquired by two Hungarian companies until 2037. Hungary’s annual gas consumption is almost 10 billion cubic metres, 85 percent of which is purchased from abroad, meaning the gas arriving in Hungary from Romania could cover half of Hungary’s natural gas requirements, he added.
The Minister stressed that ExxonMobil’s Hungarian support centre, which employs over 1600 people, is performing increasingly complicated tasks that represent a growing level of added value; the centre provides IT, controlling, accounting and tax-related services for ExxonMobil’s African, Middle Eastern and European subsidiaries.
Mr. Szijjártó pointed out that to date the Government has concluded strategic partnership agreements with 77 enterprises, which employ a total of 165 thousand people in Hungary, and that as a result of these agreements the companies involved have employed an additional 20 thousand staff and increased their ratio of Hungarian suppliers by 5 percent.
The Minister called the cooperation established with American enterprises and investors a success story, in view of the fact that U.S. enterprises employ 100 thousand people in Hungary and are Hungary’s second largest foreign investor group.
Romke Noordhuis said that as the head of ExxonMobil’s Business Support Centre in Budapest he expects the company’s Hungarian activities to expand further in the upcoming years, adding that Hungarian professionals are skilled, cooperative and identify with the company’s values.
He stressed Budapest’s importance within the company’s global network, adding that the newly concluded strategic partnership agreement reinforces ExxonMobil’s commitment to Hungary. ExxonMobil will continue to participate in training programmes and maintain the cooperation it has developed with Hungarian universities in future as well as its charitable donations, he stated.
ExxonMobil employs over 70 thousand people worldwide; last year its global turnover exceeded 245 billion dollars.
(MTI)
