Page 10 - Euroil Week 31 2019

EurOil POLICY EurOil
Bulgaria seeks investor to develop offshore oil, gas block
BULGARIA
So a has sought an investor for the site three times before.
BULGARIA’S government is seeking new investors in its search for o shore oil and gas resources.
At a cabinet meeting on July 31, a decision was made to o er exploration and production rights to the 4,032-square km Tervel block, covering waters 1,500-2,000 metres deep in the Black Sea.
Tervel has not been examined in any detail, according to the government, with both geolog- ical and geophysical data on the site being scarce.
The area formed part of the larger Bur- gas-Deep Sea block, for which US-based Vintage Petroleum International held a permit between 2002 and 2008. Vintage le the project without having drilled any wells, however. Since then So a has held two more contests to nd an inves- tor, both unsuccessful.
In its decision, the cabinet said the tender would be formally announced in the Bulgar- ian State Gazette and the EU’s O cial Journal. Once published, investors will have 140 days to le bids. ey will be competing for a ve-year exploration and appraisal permit that requires
them to shoot and reprocess 2D and 3D seismic data. Drilling is not compulsory.
Bulgaria has set its sights on becoming a regional gas hub, with plans to build a pipe- line to Greece and extend Russia’s TurkStream pipeline, in order to transport Russian and Caspian gas. Its e orts to establish o shore oil and gas production dovetail with this strategic goal.
Tervel lies adjacent to the Khan Asparuh block, where France’s Total, Austria’s OMV and Spain’s Repsol struck oil in 2016. e partners drilled a second well in 2017 and started work on a third last November, although no results have been published. In March, So a agreed to extend the investors’ permit for the block for more than 100 days until January 2020, but there is still no clarity on whether Total considers the site’s development feasible.
Anglo-Dutch Shell, Repsol and Australia’s Woodside Petroleum are exploring the nearby Silistar area. Woodside revealed in a report on July 18 that a wildcat well drilled there had come up dry, however.™
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
Gazprom installs turbines at Serbian gas plant
RUSSIA
Gazprom wants to create gas demand for TurkStream.
RUSSIA’S state-owned gas giant Gazprom has installed two gas turbines at a state-of-the-art 200-MW combined-cycle gas-turbine (CCGT) it is building in Pancevo, northern Serbia.
e GTU-65 turbine models were provided by Italy’s Ansaldo, Gazprom’s electricity arm Gazprom Energoholding said in a statement on August 5. eir supply comes under a €40mn ($44.6mn) agreement signed with the Italian engineer in March last year for the Pancevo sta- tion’s core and auxiliary equipment.
Ansaldo was selected as a supplier because of the “high e ciency and reliability” of its tur- bines, Gazprom Energoholding’s director in Serbia, Alexander Varnavsky, explained, noting that the model had been deployed at its plants in Russia.
e next key hardware to be delivered will be two waste heat boilers, a steam turbine and a generator.
Gazprom broke ground on the Pancevo station back in March and aims to bring it into operation in 2020. It will be Gazprom Energo- holding’s rst CCGT station outside Russia, and will produce power for the nearby Pancevo oil re nery, owned by Gazprom’s majority-owned
local subsidiary NIS, as well as other customers in Serbia and overseas.
Gazprom’s operations in Serbia are extensive, re ecting the close political ties between Mos- cow and Belgrade. rough NIS it runs a second oil re nery in Novi Sad, while also owning a minority share in Serbia’s HIP Petrohemija pet- rochemical producer.
Gazprom revealed plans earlier this year to have as many as four CCGT stations up and run- ning in Serbia. Its goal is to create gas demand in the coal-reliant country for its planned Turk- Stream project, with the plants likely to be placed along the pipeline’s future route.
TurkStream’s rst 15.75bn cubic metre per year string designed to supply the Turkish mar- ket was reported as 90% complete last month, and Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary are currently making preparations to extend the pipeline’s sec- ond string into the heart of Europe.
China’s Shanghai Electric Group is serving as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the Pancevo project, the cost of which is assessed at €180mn. Gazprom’s financial unit Gazprombank has pledged to cover most of this investment with a loan.™
P10
w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 31 08•August•2019