Page 14 - Euroil Week 01 2020

EurOil POLICY EurOil
Bosnia calls oil, gas tender
BOSNIA
The tender is for three blocks in the Pannonian basin adn one in the Dinaric Alps.
BOSNIA & Herzegovina’s Muslim-Croat Fed- eration has launched a tender for an oil and gas exploration and production concession in the Pannonian basin and the Dinarides, the entity’s energy ministry said in a statement.
The tender was supposed to be called by the end of November 2019. In October, the govern- ment announced plans to invite bids for rights to four subsoil blocks spanning 4,591 square km of the Dinaridi and Pannonian basins.
Interested bidders can file offers by May 27, and the ministry should announce the winner a month later and hopes to sign a concession con- tract by September.
The tender is for hydrocarbon deposits in three blocks in the Pannonian basin (BiHPo1, BiHPo2 and BiHTz) and one block in the Dinaric Alps (BiHD1), which spread on an overall area of 5,115 sq km.
The winner will have to carry out exploration
works within six years, then will have five years for appraisal and up to 25 years for production, with an option to extend the production period.
Bosnia currently does not produce any oil or gas, with the bulk of its supplies coming from Russia. However, US and UK surveyors identi- fied several potential deposits prior to the 1992- 1995 Bosnian war. Experts believe that the south of the country could hold up to 500mn tonnes (3.7bn barrels) of oil at depths of 4,000-8,000 metres, while a further 70mn tonnes (515mn barrels) potentially exists in its north.
According to estimates by the Federation’s geology institute, the territory of the Dinaric Alps could potentially contain deposits of round 1bn barrels of oil.
In June, the government signed a contract with UK-based HIS Global for consultancy ser- vices on the issuing of an international public invitation for oil and gas exploration. ™
Equinor signs off on Siberian oil project
RUSSIA
Equinor began working in Russia more than 20 years ago.
NORWAY’S Equinor has sanctioned a new joint project with Russia’s national oil company (NOC) Rosneft in Western Siberia.
North-Komsomolskoye is a mature oilfield discovered in 1986 in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets region. Equinor, then known as Statoil, agreed in 2013 to work with Rosneft to develop the field’s deeper PK1 layer and began pilot drilling.
The pair moved on to test production in 2018.
Equinor announced on December 23 it had taken a final investment decision (FID) with Rosneft on the project’s development. The move follows the Norwegian firm’s closure in January last year of the purchase of a 33.3% stake in the field’s operator, Sevkomneftegaz. Rosneft holds the remaining 67.7% equity.
“This is an important milestone in the joint project that we have been working on for seven years,” Equinor’s country manager for Russia, Elisabeth Kvalheim, said in a statement.
Rosneft has described North-Komsomol- skoye as having “complex geology associated with an oil rim of highly viscous oil.” While its resources are “difficult to extract,” the field is not subject to Western sanctions that bar companies from assisting Russia in shale oil, deepwater and
Arctic offshore projects.
Neither partner has disclosed the value of
the new investment, nor production forecasts for North-Komsomolskoye. But according to Equinor, the pair aim to recover 250mn barrels of oil and 23bn cubic metres of gas.
Rosneft’s data shows that the field produced 125,100 tonnes (10,100 barrels per day) of oil, 7,760 tonnes (767 bpd) of condensate and 43.7mn cubic metres of natural gas in the three months ending September 30.
Equinor has been active in Russia for more than 20 years, and agreed to work more closely with Rosneft at projects under a strategic pact in 2012. The partners also have a pilot project in Western Siberia to recover oil from lime- stone, which also is not subject to international sanctions.
The two companies also teamed up to drill wells in 2016 in the Sea of Okhotsk in the Rus- sian Far East, but this venture ended in failure with no oil or gas found.
Several other Western majors are preparing to close new investment deals in Russia’s upstream – namely Royal Dutch Shell and Spain’s Repsol, which want to develop oil with Gazprom Neft.™
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