The state to acquire a 35% share of the project company, which is looking for oil and gas in the Black Sea. This idea was launched by GERB deputy and former energy minister Delyan Dobrev. According to him, in this way, Bulgaria has a chance to become a gas exporter on a larger scale even than Azerbaijan. He calculated that the state can earn about BGN 2.7 billion at current natural gas prices.
“In the next week, I will convince my colleagues from the other parliamentary groups to adopt a Decision of the National Assembly, with which we will assign the cabinet to negotiate the participation of Bulgaria as a shareholder in this projecthe stated.
Drill holes
Explorations in the “Khan Asparuh” block in the Black Sea have been carried out for years by two large companies – “Total” and OMV. So far, the two companies have drilled three wells. The fourth survey is expected to be conclusive on the presence of deposits.
Last week, the companies informed that they expect there to be around 13 billion cubic meters of gas in the block.
“Bulgaria’s current consumption is around 2.5 billion cubic meters. That is, the extraction of Bulgarian gas from the Bulgarian Black Sea will be 5 times greater than the entire consumption of the country. Or in other words, we will become an exporter of gas to Europe” said Dobrev.
Last spring, an additional agreement was signed with the two companies at the Ministry of Energy, under which the period for exploration was extended until February 2024. The contract for exploration in the Khan Asparuh block was signed in the fall of 2012, with investment intentions from BGN 1 billion in the next five years, and the budget received a concession fee of EUR 40 million in advance. At that time, the partner of Total and OMV was the Spanish Repsol, but it withdrew from the project in June 2020.
In the fall of 2016, Total reported an oil discovery in the first well, but apparently the next two proved insufficient to confirm quantities to allow commercial exploitation of the potential field. Despite the refusal of “Repsol”, “Total” and OMV did not give up, because of the discovery of a large deposit in Romanian waters nearby, which geologically suggests that it is also possible to have one in our country. The inclusion of the state, if it happens, will play the role of the third partner that Total and OMV are looking for.
Fields
At the moment, the “Khan Asparuh” block is the only offshore area that continues to be explored for oil and gas in our country, after “Shell” abandoned the explorations in the block near Burgas, originally called “Silistar”, but later renamed ” Khan Kubrat”. The other block considered as a potential source of energy resources – “Teres” – never managed to attract the interest of investors, despite several procedures for searching for a candidate to explore there.
