Albania delayed by a month to
mid-July the bidding for companies keen to explore for oil and
gas on five onshore blocks and indefinitely for two offshore
blocks, officials said on Monday.
A week before offers for the onshore bids was due on June
15, Energy Minister Damian Gjiknuri ordered the bidding date be
postponed for another month to give companies more time, Reuters reported.
"What can you do when the second or third biggest oil
company in the world asks you for more time," a senior official
at the Energy Ministry told Reuters when asked about the delay.
The move is also set against friction between Albania and
Greece after Albania's top court repealed a 2009 agreement to
divide their continental shelf.
Part of one of the offshore blocks, the Ionian 5, offered by
Albania three weeks ago overlaps with the area of the Ionian Sea
near Corfu in which Greece also wants to let companies drill, within the framework outlined in the 2009 agreement.
With both hard-up countries now determined to search for oil
offshore, the sovereign rights on the seabed and subsoil risk
delaying the process until their dispute over rights to the
waters in the Ionian Sea is resolved.
Neither of the big oil players that rushed to Albania soon
after it toppled communism in 1990 have struck it rich, but a
promising initial finds by a venture of Shell and
Petromanas have whipped up interest.
Now bidders have until July 15 to express their interest for
blocks 4, 3, Dumre, C and 4 onshore.
"The deadline for the handover of the applications for the
sea blocks, due to the consolidation of the seismic data, will
be postponed for another deadline," Gjiknuri said