How to Bankrupt Mineral Water? The State Mineral Water Monopoly on the Brink of Insolvency

In Transylvania it is called borvíz, in Romania mineral water, and the country itself holds about 30 percent of Europe's mineral water reserves suitable for drinking, yet the state company managing this treasure has still been turned into a loss-maker. According to G4Media's investigative article of November 5, the National Mineral Waters Company (SNAM), which controls about half of the domestic market with 41 extraction licenses and sells licenses for the mineral water to private bottling companies, posted a loss of 4.27 million lei in 2025 against revenues of nearly 50 million lei. This would be its first loss-making year since 2005, even though the company had planned a profit of 3.2 million lei, which would have been its best result since 2019. Its debts grew to 10.8 million lei, the highest level since 2015, of which 9.3 million lei is tax debt and 1.5 million lei is commercial debt, both due in 2026. The company's sole owner is the Ministry of Economy, and the licenses are valid until 2029.

SNAM's business model would be simple. It doesn't bottle or manufacture anything, it only acts as an intermediary: using the licenses it holds for the sources, it sells the water to bottlers, and its revenue comes mainly from their payments. The company explains the loss mainly by the fact that the mining and petroleum authority, ANRMPSG, retroactively raised the mining royalty, but it also admitted that it had not adjusted its expenses to match expected revenues. G4Media points out, however, that the mining royalty was actually indexed to 2024 and 2025 inflation back in May 2025, so the change can hardly have caught the company by surprise. Meanwhile, staff numbers have grown to their highest level since 2020; according to SNAM, there are now 131 positions in the organizational structure, of which 111 are filled, while five director positions have been eliminated. The company also failed to recover 614,000 lei in outstanding claims, because the debtors went bankrupt and the liquidator paid off the other creditors first.

The greatest danger, however, comes from a lawsuit. Market leader Romaqua Group, which bottles, among others, Borsec water, is demanding 24 million lei from SNAM over a microbiologically non-compliant water shipment that had to be withdrawn from the market. This amount is nearly half of SNAM's total annual revenue, and according to an inside source, if the company loses the case, it could become insolvent.

– the source told the publication.

SNAM says it is “premature” to talk about insolvency and that it continues to meet its contractual obligations, while Romaqua claims that SNAM delivered microbiologically non-compliant water to it, calling the state company an intermediary that is “unique” in modern Europe, against which it will use every available legal remedy. There are other problems surrounding the company's operations as well: in October 2025, ANRMPSG fined SNAM 50,000 lei over the management of the Biborțeni–Bățanii Mari (Bibarcfalva–Nagybacon) deposit in Covasna County, and an undeclared pipeline was found at Velta Prod in Bihor County. The security services contract grew from 123,000 to 192,000 lei through an amendment, and laboratory testing was carried out through successive orders instead of an annual framework contract. The construction of its own bottling plant has been discussed for years, but it was never built.

The company's management is a textbook example of party-political patronage: SNAM's CEO chair has previously been held by a National Liberal Party (PNL) MP, whom a subordinate accused of sexual harassment, then by two Social Democratic Party (PSD) appointees, and then by the joint candidate of the PNL and the People's Movement Party (PMP), Dumitru Florian Staicu, who has led the company since May 2026. Each of the last three leaders earned more than 30,000 lei gross per month; Staicu's salary is 31,712 lei. The board of directors includes candidates from the PSD, the PNL and the USR (Save Romania Union), who receive a monthly gross allowance of 8,130 lei. This is how mineral water goes bankrupt: not because the sources have dried up or the market has disappeared, but because a state intermediary is kept alive not by the water, but by executive salaries and party appointments, while the real work — bottling, distribution and export — is carried out by private companies.

Ugar