October 2 (SeeNews) - Croatia's economy ministry said it has issued licences to three local energy companies for geothermal water exploration at five locations following an international tender as part of plans to increase domestic electricity production from renewable energy sources.
Oil and gas company INA [ZSE:INA] was granted licences for two locations, Lescan and Medjimurje 5, the economy ministry said in a press release on Sunday.
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Energy generation company IGeoPen received a licence to explore at two locations, Pcelic and Sjece, with the bidder relying on support from an unnamed company from the UK.
The fifth licence was granted for Kotoriba location to Viola Energy Generation. The bidder relies on an unnamed company from Turkey, the economy ministry said.
No bids were submitted for Ferdinandovac, the sixth location that was offered in the tender. The overall potential of all locations offered is estimated at 600,000 MWh of electricity.
A total of 16 bids from 11 candidates relying on energy companies from Croatia, Turkey, the UK, France, Sweden and Italy, were submitted in the tender held from December 28, 2022 to June 1, 2023.
The works envisage construction of 21 geothermal wells with the value of the offered research works estimated at 191.7 million euro ($203 million). The total value of expected investment in case of positive results from the exploration is estimated at more than 400 million euro.
Croatia has an estimated geothermal potential for construction of geothermal power plants with overall power of some 1.0 GW.
INA’s shares last traded on Friday on the Zagreb bourse, closing flat at 450 euro.
($ = 0.945 euro)
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