Germany’s IEC Group To Develop Albania’s Albpetrol’s Oilfield

IEC Group will develop the Visoka oilfield, located some 13 kilometres south of the southwestern town of Fier, the ministry said in a statement. Average daily production from the oilfield is 40 tonnes of heavy oil. Under the deal, IEC Group will use a new method to intensify the extraction process through catalytic fluids.

“The German company set up its own Albania subsidiary IEC Visoka to manages the development project,” the ministry’s spokeswoman Iva Tico told SeeNews.

Under the deal, IEC Visoka is to invest at least $600,000 (500,000 euro) during the test period which will last at least 18 months, the statement said. Depending on the test results the deal could be extended by 25 or 30 years during which IEC Visoka will make considerable investments to develop and to start production.

The Visoka oilfield opened in 1963.

In the last several years prospects for oil and gas reserves in Albania have started to attract a growing number of international investors. As one of the most isolated communist countries in the past, Albania's natural resources remain largely undeveloped. Canadian petrochemical company Bankers Petroleum drills Albania's onshore Patos Marinze and Kucova heavy oilfields, and Swiss-based Manas Petroleum has recently launched a seismic research to identify oil wells in Albania.

Under Albania’s legislation on the exploitation of natural resources, profit tax is 50%.

($=0.7871 euro)