The country's 6 million acres of forests constitute a valuable source of raw material. Information on the volume of the annual tree harvests has not been published. Substantial quantities of lumber and, increasingly, of lumber products and furniture have been exported, although at the expense of domestic consumption.
In a program to conserve and rebuild this important resource, which was severely overexploited during World War II, a strict limitation was placed in the early 1950s on the annual volume of timber cut. A further reduction in the amount of timber felling was decreed for the 1971-75 period. Through a more efficient utilization of the timber and the expansion of wood processing, including the manufacture of plywood, chipboard, and furniture, the value of the output, nevertheless, increased substantially. Exports of lumber and wood products accounted for 13.4 percent of total exports in 1970, but this ratio is scheduled to decline to 6 percent in 1975, not because of a reduction in the volume of these exports but as a result of a planned expansion of other industrial and food product exports.
ELECTRIC POWER
Electrical power development has proceeded at a rapid pace. The installed generating capacity of 7.3 million kilowatts in 1970 was four times larger than the capacity available a decade earlier. Eighty-four percent of the installed capacity in 1970 was in thermal power plants, and the remaining 16 percent, in hydroelectric stations. Hydroelectric capacity development had been relatively more rapid, with a sixfold increase during the decade.
The production of electrical energy increased even faster than installed capacity because newly built plants operated at greater efficiency. The output of 35 billion kilowatt-hours in 1970 was 4.6 times greater than output in 1960. Power output is scheduled to reach 58 billion to 60.8 billion kilowatt-hours in 1975. These figures imply an average annual increase in power production of 10.5 to 11.7 percent, compared with an average increase of 16.5 percent in the 1960-70 period. Thermal power plants accounted for 92 percent of the output in 1970, and hydroelectric stations, for only 8 percent. Output per unit of thermal capacity was more than double that of hydroelectric generators. The total hydroelectric power potential that could be economically developed has been estimated at 24 billion kilowatt-hours per year.
The Romanian power grid is connected to the power grids of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. This tie-in makes possible a more efficient use of available power through mutual exchanges to equalize the load and provides some insurance in the event of regional power failures.
Almost two-thirds of the thermal energy output in 1970 was based on natural gas fuel, and one-third, on coal—mostly coal of very low quality. Less than 3 percent of the fuel used was accounted for by oil. The proportion of natural gas in the fuel balance was roughly the same as in 1960 but ten percentage points lower than in 1965. The share of coal, particularly of low-grade coal, has been rising, in line with the government's policy of conserving natural gas for use in the petrochemical industry.
In 1971 construction was virtually completed of a huge hydroelectric station at the Iron Gate on the Danube River, built jointly with Yugoslavia and equipped, in part, with turbines made in the Soviet Union. The station's twelve turbines have a total capacity of 2.1 million kilowatts and are planned to produce about 11 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. The output is to be evenly divided between the two participating countries. Nine of the twelve turbines were reported to have been in operation in September, and six were reported to have been connected to the Romanian national power grid in November. Completion of the Romanian portion of the project almost doubled the country's hydroelectric capacity and increased its power output potential by about 15 percent.
A second, much smaller, hydroelectric station with a capacity of 400,000 kilowatts and a planned output of 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours per year is to be built jointly with Yugoslavia on the Danube River below the Iron Gate plant. Plans for this station were to be initialed by the negotiators before the end of 1971, but information on the dates for the start and completion of construction is not available. Plans for the construction of yet another power station on the Danube River, as a joint venture with Bulgaria in the Cernavoda-Silistra area, were announced in the fall of 1971. This station is to have a capacity of 760,000 kilowatts and an annual output of about 3.8 billion kilowatt-hours. Construction is apparently scheduled to begin in 1975.
An agreement with the Soviet Union to build a 440,000-kilowatt nuclear power station, using a Soviet reactor, was signed in May 1970. Construction of the plant is to begin in 1972, and completion is scheduled for 1978. The agreement culminated extensive negotiations with the Soviet Union and several noncommunist countries. The ultimate choice is believed by Western observers to have been dictated primarily by political considerations.