OMV Petrom to invest EUR 70 mln in Black Sea drilling campaign

Austrian oil major OMV Petrom has kicked of a new drilling campaign in the Black Sea, which will require investments of EUR 70 million by mid-2018.

Three new drills will target deposits that were already identified by the company, while another one will support the discovery of new resources.

“Although the offshore deposits in the Black Sea have a production history of 30 years, they continue to account for a large share of the group’s total production. The current drilling campaign is in line with our strategy of exploiting our key portfolio as efficient as possible and to have an efficient production considering that we manage the natural decline of output,” said Peter Zeilinger, member of the OMV Petrom Directorate, responsible for Upstream.

The company’s daily output from Istria block stands at 30,000 boe, accounting for 18 percent of the group’s production in Romania.

OMV Petrom is doing joint exploration works with ExxonMobil in the Neptun Deep block. The two companies have made some discoveries of gas deposits, but the commercial production hasn’t started yet.