Melrose Resources plans to start extracting gas from a Bulgarian Black Sea offshore block by the middle of 2009, it said yesterday.
The oil and gas explorer, which already extracts gas from another Bulgarian Black Sea deposit, received a three-year permit in December to explore a block of 1,910 square kilometers surrounding its Galata producing gas field.
“The reserves in the immediate vicinity of the well are estimated at 7 billion cubic feet (bcf) (198.2 million cubic meters) and there is additional upside in the field of over 40 bcf,” the company said in a statement.
The data is based on drilling the Galata E3-Kaliakra exploration well, it said, and that there was a 50 percent chance for upside reserves. The total field size would be clear after a period of production, the company said.
In 2001, a Melrose subsidiary signed a 25-year concession agreement with Bulgaria to extract gas from a deposit in the Galata field, with estimated reserves of 1.44 billion cubic meters.
Bulgaria, which covers almost all of its gas and oil needs through imports from Russia, started offering the Black Sea shelf for exploration about seven years ago.