Three Companies in Bulgarian Deep-water Race

ExxonMobil, Total and Melrose Resources are the three companies in the running to produce gas from a deep-water asset in Bulgaria's Black Sea, Bulgarian Energy Minister Delyan Dobrev has said.

The minister made the statement today at the "Exploration and Production of Oil and Gas–the New Technology Frontier" conference in Bulgaria today.

The three companies are in competition to explore and produce from the Khan Aspurah deep-water field in the Black Sea, a 15,000 square kilometre block which is thought could be similar in reserves to the Domino find in neighbouring Romania. The Domino field in the Neptun Block, discovered by ExxonMobil and OMV last year, is estimated to have reserves of up to three trillion cubic feet of gas.

In fact, Bulgaria is hoping it may have access to even greater reserves, Minister Dobrev said today, given that its block area was greater than that of the Neptun Block in Romania.

"I am extremely optimistic about the Black Sea because our block is much larger than the Romanian one," he said.

If a similar find is made in the Bulgarian section of the Black Sea, he said, it could meet Bulgaria's gas needs for years to come.

"Our hopes to discover significant quantities of natural gas are huge," Novinite reports him as saying. "They stem on one side from such energy giants bidding for the tender, but on the other, on the fact that a deposit was discovered just 15 km from our northern border with Romania. Such a deposit could very well satisfy gas demand in Bulgaria for 10-20 years."

The successful bidder for the licence will be announced next month, Minister Dobrev said.