Balkans ministries gathered for the 2nd Balkans Oil & Gas Summit

IRN held the well-attended 2nd Annual Balkans Oil & Gas 2013 Summit on 24th-25th September in Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens, with key executives of the oil and gas industry giving insights and revealing future plans on the Balkans countries.

With more than 100 companies attending the summit and an outstanding panel of speakers, IRN gathered their excellences Alen Leveric, Deputy Minister of Economy in Croatia, Vladan Dubljevic, Deputy Minister for Mining and Geological Researches at the Ministry of Economy in Montenegro and Konstantinos Mathioudakis, General Secretary of Energy and Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change in Greece along with the Chairman & CEO of Energean Oil and Gas, Mathios Rigas, the CEO of Bulgartransgaz, Kiril Temelkov, the President & CEO of Stream Oil & Gas,
Dr. Sotirios Kapotas and many other exploration directors in Balkans such as Max Torres from Repsol.

Held under the auspices of the Ministry of Economy in Montenegro, the Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change in Greece, the Ministry of Economy in Croatia and the Federal Ministry of Energy, Mining and Industry in Bosnia & Herzegovina, the event gathered the elite of Balkans businessmen, international energy experts, economists and senior representatives from more than ten IOCs looking to get investment in the upcoming developments.

Vladan Dubljevic, Deputy Minister for Mining and Geological Researches Montenegro revealed details on the new licensing round that Montenegro launched on 7th August 2013 and is covering a total of 3,191 square kilometers of offshore area in the Adriatic Sea for the first time. The current bidding round is due to close on 28th February 2014 with the depth of the waters in the area offered being only 600 meters. The ministry highlighted the fact that the state currently does not envisage any participation in the exploration and it won’t charge any type of bonuses, which makes the process very transparent.

Spectrum, the UK Company that just inaugurated a seismic exploration over an area of 35,000sq km offshore Croatia, was one of the key sponsors of the summit along with DEPA (the public natural gas supply corporation of Greece), Weatherford, AVEVA, NIS GazpromNeft and NRC.

Alen Leveric, Deputy Minister of Economy in Croatia, spoke at the Balkans Oil & Gas 2013 Summit about the government’s plans on the upcoming licensing round which is planned to be announced in the second quarter of 2014 with the block sizes and licence round grid being available by early first quarter of 2014. Jevon Hilder, Business Development Manager of Spectrum, highlighted at the meeting some of the basins and areas with the biggest potential while the first processed data and identified leads/prospects will be available next month, according to the ministry’s presentation. The final modern data will be available to IOCs by the end of the first quarter of 2014, enabling oil companies to evaluate the potential offshore Croatia for more aggressive bids to be applied in forthcoming license rounds.

Lutz Landwehr, Commercial Director of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) was also present at the Summit and delivered a presentation showing the significance of the pipeline for the region and also for the entire Europe. The project will contribute directly to the economic progress of the countries. TAP will increase employment during construction and operations. The construction of the pipeline is planned to start end of 2014/early 2015 and will be ready to receive the first gas from Shah Deniz in 2019.

Mathios Rigas, CEO of Energean Oil & Gas, the only IOC currently operating in Greece gave exclusive insights from the oil and gas and investment environment in the country. It is now that Greece has come back to the E&P map after a total of 15 years of inactivity. Energean except for that, though, has been operating assets in the Prinos basin that consist a good example of strong cash-flow fields, and a story of success showing that Greek mature fields can still bring in investment value.

Senior executives from HELPE, DEPA, NIS, Plinacro, Repsol, BulgarTransGas, and Stream Oil & Gas along with university professors spoke at the summit that was attended by IOCs like Shell, ExxonMobil, GazpromNeft, Dana Petroleum, INA, Romgaz, Sterling Energy, Wintershall and governmental bodies from all around the world.

For the documentation of the summit please get in contact with the organiser company IRN at
info@irn-international.com and +44 (0) 207 111 1615.

Energjia.al  09.10.2013