Monday, August 25, 2003: The Battle for PETROM

By Paul Cristian Radu paulradu@crji.org

In the beginning of the year, during the discussions regarding the privatization of the Romanian national oil company PETROM, the names of three possible partners that could join their efforts in order to win the controlling stake in PETROM showed up: Ovidiu Tender-Willem Matser-Halliburton.

The first-one of the main Romanian businessmen, the second-a high ranked officer in NATO and the third-an important US based corporation that is active in the oil industry and it is linked to the US vice president Dick Cheney. Few days after the triple alliance is announced, Matser is arrested in Brussels on charges of money laundering, money that possibly came from the drug trafficking in Colombia. Ovidiu Tender is stunned because the name of his group of companies “Tender SA” is presented as linked to the Matser affaire both in Romania and the Netherlands. Since then there was nothing much said about Halliburton’s interest in PETROM. The CRJI reporters are able now to present new data about this transnational affaire that, according to our investigation, connect the names of Ovidiu Tender, the Romanian industry tycoon, Vasile Frank Timis, the gold mining tycoon, and the Halliburton group.
On the 7th of February 2003, the Dutch police arrested on money laundering charges Willem Matser, lieutenant colonel in the staff of NATO’s SECRETARY General Lord George Robertson. Matser was accused of being involved in a 200 million USD money laundering scheme. The money was said to have come from the drug trafficking in Colombia. Matser intended to use the “Tender SA” group of companies in order to achieve his goal. The news regarding the NATO officer’s arrest was kept secret until one month later. On the 7th of March the arrest went public. Few days earlier Tender has already announced that he is ready to enter the battle for the privatization of PETROM along with his powerful partners Willem Master and Halliburton.

The Regal Petroleum Connection

We have discovered that on the 11th of March 2003, only a few days after the Matser scandal was published, the general manager of “Halliburton Company Germany Gmbh”, Guenter Nolte, has left his position in Halliburton. Two days later he becomes CEO of another company: “Regal Petroleum PLC”. This company belongs to the shady businessman Vasile Frank Timis. Timis holds double citizenship, Romanian and Australian, is behind the controversial affaire “Rosia Montana”-the biggest gold deposit of Europe, and was arrested twice for heroin dealings in Australia. Timis admitted when we interviewed him earlier last year that he is the one that brought Ovidiu Tender in the “Gabriel Resources”, the company that intends to exploit the Rosia Montana gold fields by erasing an ancient town from the face of the Earth.
The name of the “REGAL Petroleum” company is mentioned in a letter addressed in 1999 by the Russian giant company GAZPROM to the then Romanian prime minister, Mugur Isarescu. GAZPROM says in the letter that “REGAL Petroleum” works together with the Ukrainian organized crime groups that steal gas from GAZPROM pipelines and sell it afterwards to Romania.
At this very moment, Regal has activities in Ukraine and Romania where its partner is the “Prospectiuni SA” company that belongs to Ovidiu Tender.

Halliburton Romania

Ovidiu Tender told us in an interview that he met Guenter Nolte, the general manager of Halliburton Germany, in 2000 but he denies that Nolte facilitated his alliance with the Halliburton group for the privatization of PETROM. He said we should talk to Frank Timis.
A very important fact in this context is that the branch of Halliburton in Romania is the “Halliburton Energy Services Romania SRL” which has as sole representative the Dutch citizen Tako Jan Kremer. Kremer is in the meantime a director of Halliburton Germany where until March he was a colleague of Guenter Nolte. Ovidiu Tender told us that he doesn’t know any Tako Jan Kremer the representative of Halliburton in Romania. Besides representing Halliburton in Romania, Kremer is a director in the following companies, all tied to the Halliburton group: “Halliburton Company Austria Gmbh”, “Baroid Gmbh” from Germany and “Kellog Brown & Root Gmbh”(KBR). The KBR group secured 2.3 billion USD worth contracts with the US government being present along with the US army in all the conflict areas of the world including Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq.