Bulgaria Says Total, Melrose File Bids in Tender for Deepwater Gas Drilling Offshore
Thursday, 01 January 1970
France’s Total and UK-based Melrose Resources have filed bids in a tender for deepwater gas drilling off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, the Balkan country's economy ministry said.
U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil did not file a bid although it had bought tender documents, the ministry’s press office confirmed for SeeNews on Friday.
The tender winner will get a permit to drill at a depth of 5,000 metres in the course of several years, Bulgaria’s energy minister Delyan Dobrev said last month, adding that he is confident significant deposits of natural gas would be discovered.
Recent studies in the Romanian part of the Black Sea have indicated deposits of between 40 billion and 83 billion cubic metres of natural gas.