In brief
- On the same day as the rules on money, the State also published the complete operating manual for the Black Sea wind farms: six acts, from the development approval through to decommissioning, with more than 160 pages of rules.
- The offshore authority issues the development approval within 60 working days of the complete documentation, and the works have to start within 12 months of its issue. Acceptance of the works is carried out by a committee made up of the Ministry of Energy, the offshore authority and the transmission and system operator.
- In the edition in which the annexes were printed, four of the five orders are followed by the annex to a different order. The decommissioning procedure appears under the order for the operating stage, and the exploration instructions under the order for the construction stage.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 730, 730 bis, 731 and 731 bis of 31 August 2026
In force from: 31 August 2026
Whoever is going to build in the Black Sea now knows both what it pays and what it has to do, step by step, from the first day of exploration to the last part taken apart. On 31 August 2026 six acts were published which complete the offshore package: Government Decision no. 687/2026, containing the procedure for the acceptance of the works, and five orders of the President of the Competent Authority for the Regulation of Offshore Operations in the Black Sea, known by its Romanian acronym ACROO. Together with the decision by which the royalty was set at 0.75% and the fees at 800 and 1,500 euro per square kilometre, they turn a law dating from 2024 into a complete working regime.
The five orders cover two different things. Orders no. 13 and no. 14 are authorisations: how one obtains the development approval, that is the right to build, and the decommissioning approval, that is the right to dismantle. Orders no. 15, no. 16 and no. 17 are operational safety instructions, one for each stage of the project: exploration, construction and operation. Decision no. 687/2026 closes the circle, with the procedure through which completed works are accepted.
The legal basis says something about the way this regime was put together. All five orders are issued under Article 8(14) of Law no. 165/2016 on the safety of offshore oil and gas operations, read together with Article 4 of Law no. 121/2024 on offshore wind energy. The safety of wind farms out at sea therefore rests on the law written for oil and gas platforms, and the authority that supervises them is the same one.
What it changes in practice
The step before the development approval, the exploration permit, got a methodology of its own on 1 September 2026: who may apply for it and what the file has to contain.
The first effect is that the investor has deadlines. The development approval is issued by ACROO within 60 working days of the submission of the complete documentation, and the assessment may be carried out in successive stages. If the authority’s observations remain unresolved, ACROO issues a reasoned decision of refusal, communicates it to the concessionaire and informs the Ministry of Energy. The decommissioning approval has the same deadline, 60 working days, but counted from the submission of the technical design.
The second effect is a clock that starts running after the approval. Construction works have to begin within 12 months of the issue of the development approval and be completed within the period of validity set by it. At least 30 days before execution actually begins, including where the project is carried out in sections or stretches, the concessionaire sends the notifications required by law.
The third effect concerns acceptance. It is carried out by a committee made up of representatives of the Ministry of Energy, of ACROO and of the transmission and system operator, which draws up the acceptance report on completion of the works. ACROO has at most 20 working days, running from the confirmation that the documentation is complete, in which to assess compliance with the regulatory requirements. Where documents are missing, the concessionaire has 20 working days to send them in, with the possibility of an extension requested with reasons before the deadline expires.
The fourth effect has to do with incidents. The safety instructions require reporting to ACROO and, within at most 30 working days of the incident, the submission of an investigation report on the prescribed form, setting out the causes identified and the corrective and preventive measures. Sending the initial report is not conditional on the investigation being completed.
The fifth effect is that decommissioning was thought through from the start, rather than left for thirty years’ time. The decommissioning approval covers dismantling, removal, transport, the decommissioning of the means used and the management of the resulting components, may be granted in stages or by stretches and is preceded by a prior consultation with ACROO, in which the concessionaire presents the decommissioning concept and the technical or environmental challenges it expects. The consultation is purely indicative.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 31 August 2026, Law no. 121/2024 provided that there is a development approval, a decommissioning approval, operational safety requirements and an acceptance of the works, but none of these mechanisms had a procedure. A concessionaire could not know what documents to file, with whom, how long it would take to get an answer and what happens if the answer is negative. All four now have written rules, standard forms and deadlines.
The institutional architecture changes too, and becomes visible. ACROO issues the two approvals and supervises operational safety. The Ministry of Energy monitors the concession contract and takes part in acceptance. The transmission and system operator sits on the acceptance committee, because commissioning depends on the grid connection. Three institutions, each with its own role, in a chain that the law had previously only sketched out.
A useful symmetry between beginning and end appears as well. The same authority, working to the same 60 working days, decides both whether building may go ahead and whether dismantling may. And the decommissioning approval may be granted for the whole plant or in stages, exactly like the development approval, which allows a farm built in phases to be decommissioned in phases too.
What has not changed is the tender calendar. The operating rules exist, the rules on money exist, the perimeters have been on the map since 27 August, but the moment each competitive procedure is launched remains a matter for the Ministry of Energy, with no deadline.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- All four procedures, development, decommissioning, safety and acceptance, have written deadlines, standard forms and an identified authority, which was not the case before.
- An approval is refused by a reasoned decision communicated to the concessionaire, not by administrative silence.
- The prior consultation before decommissioning allows the concept to be discussed with the authority before money is spent on the technical design.
- Acceptance involves the transmission and system operator, so the grid connection is checked by the body that actually operates it, and not only by the offshore environmental authority.
- Decommissioning has rules from day one, not in thirty years’ time, and the approval may be granted in stages, just like construction.
What remains a problem
- In the edition containing the annexes, four of the five orders are followed by the annex to a different order, so the content attributed to each order cannot be established from its position in the publication.
- The authority’s deadlines run from the „documentația completă”, the complete documentation, yet the moment at which the documentation is declared complete has no deadline of its own.
- The concessionaire has 20 working days to complete a file, while the authority has 60 in which to decide, and there is no written consequence if the authority overruns.
- The 60 working days for the decommissioning approval may be extended or suspended for clarifications, with no upper limit.
- The safety regime rests on the law on offshore oil and gas operations, even though the risks of a wind farm differ from those of a well.
Practical advice
- If you are working with the text in edition no. 730 bis, identify each annex by its title, not by the order that precedes it. Four of the five are printed after an order other than the one they belong to.
- Plan the start of works within 12 months of the issue of the development approval. This is a statutory deadline, not a contractual one, and overrunning it affects the validity of the approval.
- Send the notification that execution is starting at least 30 days beforehand, including where you are starting only one section, stage or stretch.
- Put the acceptance file together in full the first time. ACROO’s 20 working days start running only once the documentation is confirmed to be complete, so an incomplete file does not merely cause delay, it resets the starting point.
- If you receive a request to complete the file, ask for the extension before the 20 working days expire, not afterwards. The procedure allows an extension only on a reasoned request made within the deadline.
- In the event of an incident, send the initial report immediately, without waiting for the investigation. The investigation report has a separate deadline, at most 30 working days from the incident.
- Before commissioning the technical design for decommissioning, ask for the prior consultation with ACROO. It is only indicative, but it shows you what the authority expects before you pay for the design.
Frequently asked questions
Which acts have been published, exactly?
How long does it take to obtain the development approval?
When do the works have to begin?
Who accepts the works?
What happens in the event of an incident?
How is a farm dismantled at the end of its life?
Why does the law on the safety of oil and gas operations apply?
Can the tenders start now?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- In edition no. 730 bis, four of the five orders are followed by the annex to a different order. The edition reproduces each order on a page of its own, immediately followed by its annex. Checking page by page gives the following pairs: page 2, the order on the development approval, followed on pages 3-25 by the rules on the development approval, the only correct pair; page 26, the order on the decommissioning approval, followed on pages 27-57 by the instructions on safety in the operating stage; page 58, the order on safety in the exploration stage, followed on pages 59-83 by the instructions for the construction stage; page 84, the order for the construction stage, followed on pages 85-108 by the instructions for the exploration stage; page 109, the order for the operating stage, followed on pages 110-143 by the rules on the decommissioning approval. The contents list of edition no. 730 bis gives the same page ranges as being the annexes to Orders no. 14, 15, 16 and 17 respectively, so it reproduces the same crossover. Each of the five orders provides, in Article 1, that it approves the rules or instructions „prevăzute în anexa care face parte integrantă din prezentul ordin”, set out in the annex forming an integral part of the order. Since the annex that actually follows each order is a different one, the content approved by four of the five orders cannot be established from its position in the publication, but only from the title of the annex. A reader acting in good faith arrives at two different results depending on how the annexes are paired: by title, a coherent regime; by the printed order, operating instructions approved as a decommissioning procedure.
Editorial analysis
This package solves the problem that was left over once the State had fixed the map and the price: what exactly somebody who wins a concession actually has to do. The six acts cover the whole cycle, from the first approval to the last part taken apart, and the fact that the decommissioning rules appear on the same day as the construction rules is a good choice. In large infrastructure projects it is the closing stage that gets postponed, and its cost usually ends up with the State.
What comparing the deadlines shows is the same asymmetry that appears in the rules on money published the same day. The authority has 60 working days, nearly three calendar months, in which to issue each of the two approvals, and that period starts running only from the moment when the authority itself declares the documentation complete. The concessionaire has 20 working days in which to supply what is asked of it, and an extension depends on a reasoned request made within the deadline. Nowhere is there a consequence for an authority that goes beyond 60 days, whereas for the concessionaire the deadlines run with effects on the validity of the approval. Added up, the two approvals and the acceptance assessment give the administration 140 working days of decision-making, close to seven calendar months, spread over the life of the project.
The second thing worth saying is what the legal construction rests on. All five orders are issued under Article 8(14) of Law no. 165/2016, that is under the law on the safety of offshore oil and gas operations. The choice has its administrative logic, since ACROO already exists and has experience with platforms, but the risks differ: a well has hydrocarbons under pressure, a wind farm has hundreds of fixed structures over a large area, submarine cables and maintenance vessel traffic. The instructions published now deal separately with exploration, construction and operation, which is right, but the legal basis remains a law written for something else.
Finally, the printing error in edition no. 730 bis says something about the speed at which this was done. The memoranda of the Offshore Energy Directorate are dated between 20 and 28 August, the orders were signed within the same window, and everything appeared on 31 August, in four editions at once, together with the concession decision and the acceptance decision. Five annexes of between 25 and 34 pages each, printed on the same day, ended up crossed over. It is not an error of substance on the part of the issuing authority, but it is an error that affects publication itself, the one moment at which an act becomes enforceable.
What should be changed
- A correction of edition no. 730 bis, published in the Official Gazette of Romania. It is the only way for each order to end up officially accompanied by its own annex. Until then, any reference to „the annex to Order no. 14/2026” leads, in the official publication, to a text other than the one the order approved.
- A deadline for declaring the documentation complete. ACROO’s 60 working days and the 20 in the acceptance procedure all run from that moment, and the moment itself has no deadline. A period of 10 working days for the administrative check would close the chain.
- A limit on extending or suspending the deadline for approving decommissioning. The text allows an extension „în vederea clarificărilor”, for the purpose of clarifications, with no cap. At a stage where the concessionaire already has environmental obligations under way, an unlimited extension shifts the cost onto it.
- Publication of refusal decisions, in anonymised form. The reasoned decision of refusal is communicated only to the concessionaire and to the Ministry of Energy. Publishing the reasons would give a market that numbers a handful of players a sense of what does not get through, before each of them tries on its own.
- A review of the safety basis after the first project. If the regime built on the law on oil and gas operations turns out to be a poor fit for wind, adjusting it is cheaper after the first farm than after the fifth. A report by ACROO two years after the first development approval would be enough.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Gazette of Romania no. 730, no. 730 bis, no. 731 and no. 731 bis of 31 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 109 KB the act starts on page 12
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The other editions cited: nr. 730 bis/2026, nr. 731/2026, nr. 731 bis/2026
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.