In brief
- Whoever wins an offshore wind perimeter in the Black Sea has known since 1 September 2026 how to obtain the exploration permit: an application to the Ministry of Energy after the concession contract has been signed, accompanied by ten categories of documents and by an exploration programme.
- The permit has no duration of its own. It covers the exploration stage laid down in the law, that is no more than 2 years from the signing of the concession contract, with a single extension of up to 6 months, and the clock runs from the contract, not from the permit.
- The methodology had to be approved by 30 June 2025, under Article 18 of Law no. 121/2024. It arrived 428 days later and contains no deadline at all binding on the Ministry of Energy.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 733 of 1 September 2026
In force from: 1 September 2026
The last piece missing from the offshore wind file was published on 1 September 2026. Order of the acting Minister of Energy no. 951/2026, which appeared in Official Gazette of Romania no. 733, approves the Methodology for granting the exploration permit in offshore wind perimeters, that is the act which says how a concessionaire comes to be allowed to measure the wind, the depths and the seabed in the perimeter he has won. It comes a day after the concession rules, which set the royalty at 0.75% and the fees at 800 and 1,500 euro per square kilometre a year, and five days after the list of the three perimeters open to concession, 948 km² and 3,100 MW.
The order has a single substantive article and one annex: the methodology, with 21 articles divided into seven chapters and with two forms, the model application and the model permit. It was signed on 27 August 2026 by Ilie-Gavril Bolojan, the Prime Minister who also holds the energy portfolio on an interim basis, under Article 18 of Law no. 121/2024 on offshore wind energy and on the basis of Approval Report no. 153.468 of 25 August 2026.
The provision of law which called for this order is short and explicit. Article 18 of Law no. 121/2024 says that the exploration permit is granted to the concessionaire by the Ministry of Energy after the concession contract has been concluded, and that the methodology for granting it „is to be approved by 30 June 2025”. Between that date and 1 September 2026, 428 days went by. The delay has blocked nothing in practice, however: the perimeters that may be put up for concession were approved only on 27 August 2026, and the concession rules on 31 August 2026, so there is as yet no concession contract and therefore no possible applicant.
The same edition of 1 September 2026 carried another act from the same family, Joint Order no. 945/1.349/1.607 on the Action Plan for the simplification of administrative procedures in offshore wind projects, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 734 and no. 734 bis.
What it changes in practice
The same day, the energy ministry also signed a plan meant to cut permitting from 24 months to 12: the plan attaches no consequence to a deadline that slips.
Who may apply for the permit. Only the concessionaire of an offshore wind perimeter, that is the economic operator who has already signed the concession contract with the Ministry of Energy. The methodology applies to „the concessionaires of offshore wind perimeters who apply to the Ministry of Energy for the grant of the exploration permit”, and the application is filed after the contract has been concluded. There is no way in for an investor who has not been through the competitive concession procedure.
What has to go into the file. The application follows the model in Annex no. 1 and states the name of the applicant, the concession contract and the perimeter. The supporting documentation has ten items: the identification data and proof of legal representation through a certificate from the trade register, the concession contract, the exploration programme, the site plan and the geospatial representation of the working areas, the timetable of activities, the description of the equipment, installations and vessels, the operational safety and occupational health documentation, the documentation on the protection of the marine environment, the endorsements and authorisations required by the applicable legislation, and a declaration by the concessionaire on its own responsibility. The documents are filed on paper or electronically, signed in accordance with Law no. 214/2024 on the electronic signature.
What the exploration programme is. It is the technical heart of the file and, under the definition in the methodology, it describes the investigation activities, the methods, the siting, the timetable and the technical means. It may cover six types of activity: measurements of the wind resource and of the weather conditions, hydrographic, oceanographic and bathymetric surveys, geophysical and geotechnical surveys of the seabed and the subsoil, sampling and geotechnical drilling, environmental and biodiversity surveys and monitoring, plus any other works needed to prepare the development stage. For each of them the applicant states the method, the coordinates, the estimated duration, the equipment and vessels used and the main safety measures.
What the permit gives its holder and what it does not. It gives him the right to carry out the activities in the programme, exclusively within the limits of the perimeter under concession. It takes the place of nothing else: the methodology says twice, in Article 2 and in Article 10, that the permit does not replace the endorsements, agreements, authorisations and notifications required by sectoral legislation, and that the check carried out by the Ministry of Energy does not take the place of the endorsement, authorisation or control powers of other authorities. Where some endorsements can be obtained only after the permit has been issued, the applicant lists them in the application, and the activity for which the document is needed may not begin without it.
What the permit contains. Eight items: the concessionaire’s data, the data of the concession contract, the name and the topogeodetic coordinates of the perimeter, the activities for which it is granted, the period of validity, the specific conditions, the reporting and data transmission obligations, and the obligation to observe all other endorsements and authorisations. The permit may cover the whole programme or only separate activities or stages. Amending the first five items requires an addendum; the specific conditions and the reporting obligations are changed by notification.
For how long. The methodology does not itself fix a duration; it refers to Article 17(1) of Law no. 121/2024. That provision says that, within the concession period, concessionaires have the right to explore the perimeter „for a period of no more than 2 years from the moment the concession contract is signed, with a right of extension for a period of no more than 6 months, on justified grounds and with the agreement of the granting authority”. The time therefore runs from the contract, not from the permit.
What obligations the holder has. Six of them, listed in Article 14: to work only within the perimeter under concession, to observe the exploration programme and the conditions of the permit, to hold before each activity the endorsements and authorisations required, to comply with the environmental requirements, the safety of navigation, occupational safety, defence and the protection of cultural heritage, to comply with the operational safety instructions issued by the Competent Authority for the Regulation of Offshore Operations in the Black Sea, and to inform the Ministry of Energy of significant changes to the programme. To these are added quarterly activity reports, which must also show the departures from the programme and the remedial measures taken.
What happens at the end. The concessionaire draws up the final exploration report, with the activities carried out, the methods used, the data obtained and the relevant results, and sends it to the Ministry of Energy. The data and information resulting from exploration are made available to the ministry under the law, that is free of charge, under Article 17(4) of Law no. 121/2024, but the format, the structure and the metadata are to be set by a further order of the minister of energy, which does not yet exist. The exploration stage closes before the development approval is issued, and the final report is the first of the 16 documents which the law requires for that approval.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 1 September 2026 there was no methodology at all. Law no. 121/2024 said that the exploration permit is granted by the Ministry of Energy after the concession contract has been signed, and nothing more. How it is applied for, what documents are filed, who checks what, what the permit says and what happens if the file is incomplete were regulated nowhere. Order no. 951/2026 fills that gap.
The change is therefore not the replacement of one procedure by another, but the move from the absence of a procedure to its existence. In concrete terms, four things appear which did not exist before: a closed list of the documents the ministry may ask for, a model application and a model permit, a formal stage of additions and clarifications with the effect of suspending the procedure, and a list of the holder’s obligations during exploration.
It also completes the picture built up in the last week of August 2026. On 27 August, Government Decision no. 664/2026 established where work may be done, that is three perimeters, 948 km² and 3,100 MW. On 31 August, Government Decision no. 688/2026 established what it costs, with the royalty set at 0.75% of operating revenue and the fees at 800 and 1,500 euro per square kilometre a year, the exploration stage remaining exempt from fees, while Government Decision no. 687/2026 together with ACROO Orders no. 13-17/2026 established how the development approval and the decommissioning approval are obtained and what safety rules apply. The present order says how one enters the first stage of that chain.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The list of documents is closed and published, so an investor can prepare the file before signing the concession contract, not after.
- The model application and the model permit show exactly what is asked for and what is received, which shortens the negotiation with the official at the counter.
- The permit may be issued for separate activities or stages, so works which already have all their endorsements can begin without waiting for the complete file of the others.
- Endorsements which, by their nature, are obtained only after the permit has been issued no longer block the file: they are listed in the application, with their legal basis.
- The methodology says twice that the permit does not take the place of other authorisations, which rules out from the start the comfortable reading that a document from the Ministry of Energy also covers the environment, navigation and defence.
What remains a problem
- There is no deadline at all for the Ministry of Energy: none for checking the file, none for requesting additions, none for issuing the permit.
- The 2 years of exploration run from the signing of the concession contract, so every day spent analysing the file is taken out of the concessionaire’s working time.
- The methodology does not say what happens if the application is refused: it has no grounds for refusal, no form for the refusal and no remedy of its own.
- The 6-month extension of exploration is mentioned but has no procedure: it is not known when it is applied for, with what documents and how quickly the ministry replies.
- The format in which the data obtained from exploration are handed over is postponed to a further order, which has not yet been issued.
- The deadline for completing the file may be extended „following a justified request”, with no maximum limit written into the act.
Practical advice
- Prepare the documentation before signing the concession contract, not afterwards. The 2 years of exploration begin at the signature of the contract, and the time spent on the permit file comes out of them.
- Treat the exploration programme as the heavy part of the file. It decides what the permit says, and any later change of activities requires an addendum to the permit, not a simple notification.
- Check in good time which endorsements can be obtained only after the permit has been issued and prepare the legal basis for each of them. The methodology accepts the situation but requires it to be stated in the application.
- Do not file an incomplete case hoping to complete it later. Missing the deadline for additions allows the ministry to suspend the procedure, and beyond 30 days of suspension the file starts again from a fresh application.
- Ask for the permit to contain specific conditions and reporting obligations written out expressly. The notification of the start of activities is made „under the conditions laid down in the permit”, so a permit without such conditions leaves the obligation without content.
- Put the quarterly reports in the calendar from the first day of exploration. They have to show the departures from the programme as well, not only the work carried out.
- Keep the raw data and the metadata in a format that is easy to convert. The technical requirements for handing them over will be set by a further order, and it will appear after exploration has begun.
- Do not treat the final report as a closing formality. It is the first document on the list of 16 which the Competent Authority for the Regulation of Offshore Operations in the Black Sea requires for the development approval.
Frequently asked questions
Who may apply for an exploration permit?
What does the exploration permit actually give me?
How long does the permit last?
What documents have to be filed?
What happens if the file is incomplete?
How quickly does the Ministry of Energy reply?
What do I report during exploration?
What comes after exploration ends?
From when does the order apply?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 9(4) and (5) of the methodology, a suspension of exactly 30 days. Paragraph (4) provides that, where the suspension of the procedure „intervine pentru o perioadă mai mare de 30 de zile”, that is occurs for a period of more than 30 days, the applicant sends the Ministry of Energy „o nouă cerere însoțită de documentația aferentă”, a fresh application together with the corresponding documentation. Paragraph (5) provides that, where the suspension „intervine pentru o perioadă mai mică de 30 de zile”, occurs for a period of less than 30 days, the applicant sends „doar documentele/actele administrative a căror valabilitate a încetat”, only the documents or administrative acts whose validity has lapsed. The situation in which the suspension lasts exactly 30 days is covered by neither of the two texts, although their consequences are opposite: in one case the file starts again from scratch, with a fresh application, in the other only the expired documents are supplied. Neither the applicant nor the official handling the file can work out from the act what happens on the 30th day, and the difference is measured in weeks lost from an exploration stage limited to 2 years.
- Article 15(2) read together with Article 12(1)(f) of the methodology, the notification of the start of activities. Article 15(2) creates an obligation: „Notificarea Ministerului Energiei privind data începerii activităților se realizează în condițiile stabilite prin permis.”, that is, the Ministry of Energy is notified of the date on which activities begin under the conditions laid down in the permit. The mandatory content of the permit is, however, listed in Article 12(1), where there is no mention whatsoever of notification of the start of activities, and the only item which could accommodate it, letter (f), „condițiile specifice aplicabile activităților autorizate”, the specific conditions applicable to the authorised activities, is expressly optional, being followed by the words „după caz”, as the case may be. It follows that a permit issued without specific conditions, perfectly lawful under Article 12, leaves the holder with a duty to notify which he cannot perform, since the act says neither when, nor how, nor to whom it is done. A reader acting in good faith may conclude either that no notification is due in the absence of conditions in the permit, or that it is due under conditions he has to work out for himself. What is at stake is the moment when the State finds out that work has begun out at sea.
Editorial analysis
The order solves a real problem, and it solves it decently. Until it came, Article 18 of Law no. 121/2024 said only that the exploration permit is granted by the Ministry of Energy, without saying how, and an investor who had signed a concession contract would have found himself with a right on paper and no door to go through. The methodology closes the gap with a predictable list of documents, with two forms and, more importantly, with two statements that Romanian legislation often leaves out: the permit does not take the place of other authorisations, and the check carried out by the ministry does not take the place of the powers of the other authorities. These are sentences that look redundant and that, in practice, save years of litigation.
The arithmetic of the deadlines says something different from the text. In all 21 articles of the methodology, the word „zile”, days, appears twice, both times in the same place, in Article 9(4) and (5), and in the same figure, 30. There is no other deadline expressed in days, months or years, and the one that does exist runs against the applicant. The Ministry of Energy has no deadline for checking the documentation, no deadline for requesting additions, no deadline for issuing the permit and no deadline for replying to a request to extend exploration. The same law that ordered the methodology knows how to set deadlines for the administration: Article 20(5) of Law no. 121/2024 gives the offshore authority 60 days for the development approval. Nothing of that was carried over here.
The asymmetry becomes expensive when it is set beside Article 17(1) of the law. The exploration stage lasts no more than 2 years „from the moment the concession contract is signed”, not from the date of the permit. The concessionaire’s clock therefore starts on a date the methodology does not touch, and every day the ministry spends on the file is taken out of the period in which work can actually be done at sea. The combination with Article 9 is brutal: the deadline for additions may be extended „following a justified request”, with no ceiling, then the procedure may be suspended, and if the suspension goes beyond 30 days the file starts again from a fresh application. A concessionaire may thus end up using a significant part of the 24 months without having put a single sensor into the water, while the 6-month extension, the only safety valve, again depends on the agreement of the same authority, given through a procedure that is written down nowhere.
There is also an effect that becomes visible only when this order is laid over the concession rules of 31 August 2026. There, the exploration stage is the only one exempt from the annual fees of 800 and 1,500 euro per square kilometre, which begin only with the development approval. The result, probably unintended, is that a drawn-out exploration stage costs the State nothing in lost revenue and costs the ministry nothing either, since it has no deadlines, but costs the concessionaire in full, because he loses part of his 2 years. All the incentives to move fast sit on one side of the table, and that is the side which does not decide.
One last point of chronology: Article 14(e) obliges the holder to comply with the operational safety instructions issued by the offshore authority „to the extent that they are applicable”. The reservation is explained by the date of signature, 27 August 2026, when the instructions did not exist. They appeared on 31 August 2026, through ACROO Orders no. 13-17/2026, that is a day before this order was published. The cautious wording has remained in the text, even though its object exists and applies to the exploration stage without any condition.
What should be changed
- A deadline for issuing the permit. Thirty days from the filing of the complete documentation, by symmetry with the 60 days the law gives the offshore authority for the development approval, would turn the only stage of the procedure without a deadline into one that can be checked, and would stop the 2 years of exploration draining away for administrative reasons.
- Closing the gap at exactly 30 days. Replacing the pair „more than 30 days” and „less than 30 days” with „no more than 30 days” and „over 30 days” would cover every situation and would take out of the discussion the case in which the file starts again from scratch without any basis.
- Rules on refusal. The methodology regulates only the issue of the permit and the suspension of the procedure, not the rejection of the application. Grounds for refusal, the form of the act of refusal and the duty to give reasons, written out expressly, would give the applicant something to challenge and would spare the ministry the use of suspensions as a tacit refusal.
- A procedure for the 6-month extension. The law allows it with the agreement of the granting authority but does not say how it is applied for. An article fixing the moment of the request, the supporting documents and the time for a reply would turn the only safety valve of the exploration stage into a right that can be exercised rather than a favour.
- Moving the notification of the start of activities into the mandatory content of the permit. Shifting it from Article 15(2) into the list in Article 12(1), as an item in its own right, would make the obligation exist whether or not the permit contains specific conditions.
- A deadline for the order on the data format. Article 18(2) postpones the technical requirements for handing over the data to a further order, without saying by when. Fixing a date would avoid the situation in which exploration ends before the format in which its results are handed over is known.
- Widening the rule on conflicting norms. Article 20(2) ranks the law, the government decision and the methodology, but ignores orders of the same legal force, first of all those of the offshore authority, which Article 14(e) itself declares binding. A mention of the relationship between them would spare the concessionaire from having to choose on his own which one to comply with when two orders say different things.
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. 733 of 1 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 147 KB the act starts on page 6
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