Romania’s natural gas company Romgaz announced on Wednesday that, together with its partners, it intends to abandon the EX29 Est Rapsodia Block in the Black Sea, offshore Romania.
Romgaz’s partners are Lukoil Overseas, with 72%, and PanAtlantic Petroleum with 18% interest. The remaining 10% is held by Romgaz.
The company said that the decision was based on the results obtained from exploration operations.
According to Romgaz, the data and information obtained did not give the partners the incentive to continue the petroleum operations in a supplementary stage, by assuming a new exploration program. Consequently, the partners decided to notify the National Agency of Mineral Resources about their intention to cease petroleum operations within Rapsodia Block.
To remind, Romgaz and its partners signed two concession agreements through which they acquired rights to exercise petroleum operations in two blocks in the Black Sea, EX29 Est Rapsodia and Ex30 Trident.
Romgaz explained that, in the Petroleum Agreement governing the operations related to Rapsodia Block, the partners carried out all the steps provided in the winning bid, both from a physical as well as from a value point of view.
As far as Trident block is concerned, the exploratory well Lira-1X discovered a gas field in October 2015. The well was drilled to a depth of 2,700 meters (8,858 feet) using the semi-submersible drilling rig TransOcean Development Driller II.