January 4 (SeeNews) - Montenegro's capital investments minister Mladen Bojanic said the government hopes that Greek oil and gas group Energean will start work under a second concession contract for natural gas exploration in the second quarter of the year, local media reported.
"We are on the verge of realising the second concession agreement with Energean, which, if everything goes according to plan, would start to be realised at the beginning of the second quarter of 2022," the Vijesti daily quoted Bojanic as saying in an interview.
Energean is currently the sole operator, with 100% working interest, of Montenegro's offshore blocks 4218-30 and 4219-26 covering an area of 338 square kilometres in shallow waters. The blocks were officially awarded in March 2017, following the signing of a concession agreement between the company and the Montenegrin government.
Last month, Montenegro's government said it extended by six months the deadline for the completion of the first phase of the project for exploratory offshore drilling for oil and gas by a consortium of Italy's Eni and Russia's Novatek.
"The latest information coming from the concessionaire Eni-Novatek is not optimistic. During the entire exploratory drilling operation, the parameters reached by the concessionaire indicated that oil in quantities profitable for exploitation would be found. However, after entering the deposit itself, the parameters showed a significantly different picture and we are now waiting for the official report of the concessionaire," Bojanic said.
Eni and Novatek carries out the exploratory oil and gas drilling under a concession contract signed in 2016 for the development of exploration blocks 4118-4, 4118-5, 4118-9 and 4118-10 with a total area of about 1,200 square kilometres located in Montenegrin territorial waters. Novatek and Eni each hold 50% interest in the concession.