Petrom and IBM Team Up for 10-Year Data Center and Services Agreement

BUCHAREST, Romania, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Petrom, the largest oil and gas producer in Southeastern Europe, have entered into a 10-year, multi-million dollar data center services agreement. IBM will take over the operation of Petrom's data center infrastructure to deliver industry-leading services to Petrom; Osterreichische Mineralolverwaltung (OMV), an oil and gas exploration and production company; as well as other Romanian clients.  

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IBM will offer a wide range of data center services, such as cloud computing, hosting, installation and co-location services, in addition to business continuity, on-site backup and disaster recovery capabilities.

"This collaboration with IBM reaffirms the high standards used for building and equipping the data center in Petrom City. Through this agreement, Petrom will benefit from a market leader's expertise in data center hosting as well as cost savings from the joint use of the facility," said Reinhard Pichler, Chief Financial Officer of Petrom.

The data center provides an environment to support mission critical infrastructure services with advanced cooling, power, redundancy and sustainability features. It is fully powered by the power plant in Petrom City -- one of the most modern in Europe -- allowing it to benefit from high quality and efficient power.

"This agreement will enable Petrom to reduce its data center operation costs, while enabling IBM to provide customers with a full suite of services from a robust facility in a timely and cost-effective manner," said Mihai Tudor, Country General Manager of IBM Romania. "It further illustrates IBM's focus on capturing growth in emerging markets."

The contract was signed in September 2010.

About IBM

For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/services.

About Petrom City

Petrom City, the future headquarters of Petrom, is located in Northern Bucharest and will host around 2,500 employees from current company headquarters in Bucharest and Ploiesti. The campus is formed of two office buildings, a Data Center, a 5MW power plant and a parking area with 900 parking spaces, totaling a built surface of around 100,000 sqm.

Petrom City is a unique project in Romania due to the technical innovations used at constructing the building, the process of ecological rehabilitation of the land, as well as to its architecture and working environmental branding in line with the company values.

Petrom Group

Petrom Group is the largest oil and gas group in Southeastern Europe, with activities in the business segments of Exploration and Production, Refining and Marketing as well as Gas and Power. The Group consolidated its position on the oil market in Southeastern Europe following a far-reaching modernization and efficiency increase process whereas investments accounted for more than EUR 5 bn during the last five years.

In Romania and Kazakhstan, the Group exploits proved oil and gas reserves of approximately 854 mn boe (in Romania 823 boe) and has a maximum annual refining capacity of 8 mn tons.

On the distribution market of oil products, Petrom Group is present through a network of approximately 800 filling stations, operated under two brands, Petrom and OMV. The activity in Romania is performed through OMV Petrom Marketing, 100% owned by Petrom. OMV Petrom Marketing operates 546 filling stations, out of which 389 are Petrom and 157 OMV. The Group also owns an international network of approximately 250 filling stations, located in Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria and Serbia.

For the Group's sustainable development, its strategy includes business diversification by approaching the power market. In this context, Petrom is building a 860 MW gas fired power plant at Brazi and acquired the project for the construction of a 45 MW wind park.

In 2009 the Group's turnover was EUR 3,795 mn, EBITDA was EUR 969 mn.

OMV, the leading energy group in Central and South-eastern Europe holds a 51.01% share in Petrom. OMV is active in 12 Central European countries in its Refining and Marketing business segment and in 17 countries on four continents in Exploration and Production. Ministry of Economy holds 20.64% of Petrom shares, Property Fund SA holds 20.11%, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 2.03% and 6.21% is free float on Bucharest Stock Exchange.

SOURCE IBM