The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) decided on Thursday to designate the Concession Agreement for the oil and gas exploration in the Dinaridi strategic interests, and oil company Shell has expressed interest in the concession, said in a statement after the meeting of the government entity.
FBiH Government has given approval to the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Industry to initiate the procedure for the award of a concession for the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas through direct negotiation. The Ministry should establish a special committee that would choose an international consultant in negotiations with foreign investors.
The oil company Shell Exploration B.V. has expressed interest in a concession to the Government of FBiH in September 2011.
Second World giant in the oil industry in the world, Shell has signed with the government a two-year Memorandum of Understanding in the 2011. With this Memorandum, which provides research and exploitation of oil and gas in the area of the entity, it was agreed that Shell, If finds oil and gas, start the exploitation in 2015.
Authorities have divided Dinaridi from Bihac to the south of the town of Neum in the 19 areas where they are exploring oil and gas. Only for research in several locations on the stretch Dinaridi from Bihac – Glamoc – Livno – Tomislavgrad – Mostar – Neum it needs to allocate at least $ 700 million, which is more than half the budget of the FBiH.
Estimates indicate that the oil reserves in the area of Dinaridi are at the depth of four to eight kilometers.
Representatives of Shell submitted to Federation Government report on the work done in the last two years. They gathered and digitized all the documents of the earlier oil exploration that is conducted in the last century in this region. They used also findings of companies INA, NIS and the U.S. company Amoco and created the so-called data room which costed around 3 MEUR.
Source Serbia Energy See desk
