Georgia gets 2 bids in oil, gas tender
TBILISI. June 6 (Interfax) - The Georgian Energy and Natural Resources Ministry has received two bids in an open international tender for oil and gas block licenses.
"The Georgia-British oil company International Oil Consortium bid for the development of three licensed blocks located in Eastern Georgia - XIM, XIN, and XIH, and Britain's Elenilto Georgia - only for the XIH block," head of the ministry's technical department and Natural Resources Agency Alexander Chabukiani told Interfax. No bids for block XIV were received.
The four blocks offer at the tender cover a total of 5,200 square kilometers - the eastern blocks XIM 345.5 sq km, XIN 287.8 sq km, and XIH 186.1 sq km, and the southern block XIV 4,410 sq km. Bids were collected until June 5.
Chabukiani said the tender commission will determine the victor in two weeks' time. "According to the terms, during a period of four years after documentation of the agreement the owner of the license has to invest $110 million in exploratory-prospecting work at these blocks," he said.
Canargo Georgia, a Canadian-British company, Frontera Eastern Georgia of the United States, India's Jindal Petroleum Ltd. and Vectra Investment Ltd., the Dutch Marine Resources Exploration International B.V. (Marexin), Britains Strait Oil and Gas, Kazakhstan's Akcai BMC, and a subdivision of Georgia Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) are currently engaged in seeking out and producing oil and gas in Georgia.
Total initial oil resources on Georgian territory are projected at 850 million tonnes, of which 450 million tonnes are onshore and 400 million tonnes on the Black Sea shelf. Initial gas reserves, the evaluation of which has only so far been done in Eastern Georgia, are projected at 180 billion cubic meters.
