Montenegro: Energean gets another year for offshore hydrocarbon exploration

The Government of Montenegro has extended Energean Oil & Gas’s licence by a year to explore two offshore blocks as the company required more time.
Montenegro awarded Energean a 30-year oil and gas exploration licence in 2017 for the blocks covering a combined 338 square kilometers in the Adriatic Sea’s shallow waters. Under the original deal, the exploration phase was due to last for seven years, with two research periods of three and four years.
The statement from the Government said that considering that the concessionaire needed more time for additional research and that he fulfilled all obligations from the work program, the extension of the first research period was approved.
In May 2014, three consortia submitted bids in the tender for awarding the hydrocarbon exploration and production concessions in the Adriatic Sea. Tender referred to 13 concession blocks with overall area of 3,000 km2. The bids were submitted by the consortium of Marathon Oil Corporation (USA) and OMV (Austria), consortium of Eni (Italy) and Novatek (Russia) and consortium of Energean Oil & Gas (Greece) and Mediterranean Oil and Gas (England). In early February 2016, the concession contract for oil and gas exploration in the Adriatic Sea has been signed with Italian-Russian consortium consisting of companies Eni and Novatek, which includes two exploration periods that last four plus three years, while the contract with Energean for two offshore blocks, 4219-26 and 4218-30, was signed in March 2017.