Montenegro: Three bids submitted for oil and gas exploration

Published on 20. May 2014., SEE Energy News

Three bids has been submitted to tender for concessions for the production of hydrocarbons in the Montenegrin seabed. At the press conference, Minister of Economy, Vladimir Kavaric said that three offers were submitted by three international consortia.

The first consortium is composed of two companies from the United States of America (USA) and Austria, and the second is composed of Italian and Russian companies, while the third makes Greek and English enterprises.

“A following step is evaluation of bids. We hope that we will send a concession contract for approval to the Parliament by autumn this year,” Kavaric said.

Tender includes 13 blocks in the Adriatic sea reaching total area of 3.19 thousand square kilometers.

Conditions

The criteria for getting of the concession contract contain minimum requirements and will be used as a basis for evaluating the bidder that best fit for the efficient exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the territory of Montenegro.

Minimum criteria include the formal requirements for bidders relating to the founding, location, registration and legal representatives, credible plan for the founding, capacity and staffing of the bidder’s organization in Montenegro, the relevant technical expertise and experience, necessary financial capacity for the realization of research, demonstration of capabilities and capacities for ensuring the application of best available practices in the field of safety, security and environmental protection in accordance with the law.

A bidder who is applying for an operator in the deep waters, and deeper than 500 meters, or in areas where drilling is expected under high pressure and high temperature, at least must have realized one drill hole in the seabed, of equivalent water depth, operational and environmental conditions.

The criteria for the second step of the evaluation of submitted bids are related to how a presented expertise can contribute actively to the cost-effective, safe and prudential research, the necessary financial capacity for the realization of the research, the proposed mandatory work program for the area in which are specified activities in the field of geosciences, including seismic research, the number of wells and how concessionaires propose to be realized an efficient exploration of hydrocarbons.