Four companies looking for oil and gas in Croatia

Four oil companies will invest EUR 80 million in exploring oil and gas in Croatia over the next five years, Tportal reports. This has also been confirmed by Croatian Energy Minister Tomislav Coric.

Explorations will be carried out in the so-called Pannonian Basin, the area in north Croatia bordered by the Sava and the Drava.

According to the decision of the Croatian government, INA will get permits for explorations in two areas, northwest Croatia-01 and Drava-03, whereas the permit for the Sava-07 area has been issued to the Canadian company Vermilion Zagreb Exploration, which already operates in Croatia. This company has reported finding gas in two locations.

INA has found gas in the Severovci-1 borehole, in the exploration area Drava-02.

Along with these two companies, which are already carrying out explorations in Slavonija, another two companies will join the exploration projects in Croatia – the American oil company Aspect Holdings LLC, which has obtained a permit for explorations in the Sava-06 area together with its subsidiary Aspect Croatia, and the Croatian oil company Crodux Derivati Dva, owned by Ivan Cermak, which will carry out explorations in the areas Sava-11 and Sava-12.

The gas sites found so far by Vermilion and INA are not yet commercial and are being explored further in order to prove that they are worthy of large investments. For the time being, only the plain in the northern part of the country is being explored, and the Croatian government decided this year to also open a contest for four exploration fields in the Dinarides, in the karst area which is also believed to contain large amounts of oil and gas.

The explorations will take five years, and national parks are excluded from the exploration areas.

Davor Stern, an energy expert, says that the Dinarides area is quite promising, but that the problem lies in the difficult terrain conditions, which make potential explorations much more difficult and more expensive.

INA d.d. Zagreb

Crodux plin Zagreb

INA

Vermilion Zagreb Exploration

Aspect Holdings LLC

Aspect Croatia

Crodux

Ministry of Energy of Croatia

Ivan Cermak

Davor Štern

Tomislav Ćorić

oil

gas

oil explorations

gas explorations

Pannonian Basin

Croatia 01

Drava 03

Sava 07

Drava 02

Severovci 1

Sava 11

Sava 12

Sava 06