Sejfudin Vrabac, a professor at the Faculty of Mining and Geology in Tuzla, commenting on the possible realization of an oil exploration project in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Fokus.ba that oil was already exploited in the Tuzla basin before the Second World War.
“Detailed geological mapping of terrain, geophysical profiling, and exploratory drilling is required to determine whether there is oil in other areas of BiH, in which quantity and whether it will be profitable to exploit that oil,” Vrabac told Fokus.ba.
The Federal Ministry of Energy, Mining and Industry recently re-launched activities to select a consultant for oil exploration in the FBiH. The previous procedure for looking for an oil and gas exploration and exploitation consultant, launched in 2014, has been suspended and re-launched several times, after which it all fell into the water after the giant Shell, due to the fall in oil prices on the world market, withdrew from cooperation with the Government of FBiH in 2015. Shell, however, reiterated interest in this project.
The director of the Federal Institute of Geology Hazim Hrvatovic told Fokus.ba that the oil exploration is a very serious project for the FBiH, because in case of discovering economically interesting sites there is a possibility to launch numerous activities that accompany the oil industry and hence employ of the inhabitants.
“However, it must be borne in mind that this is a costly and risky project because there is the possibility of investing substantial resources in research without finding economically interesting oilfields. It will take several hundred million BAM for research. Since the FBiH has no funds, it is planned that the oil exploration project will be realized by awarding a concession to an oil company that has experience and financial resources,” Hrvatovic said.
He added that the FBiH at the moment has no established oil reserves and that for now there are separate areas that are prospective for exploration of oil and/or gas.
“These are areas in the north of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before the 1992-1995 war. an assessment of potential oil reserves was made for only a small part of the area, about 100 square kilometers in the area of northern Bosnia. After the war, no oil reserves estimates were made. Previous data on the results of the research indicate that potential oil fields in northern Bosnia are at a depth of 2-3.5 kilometers, while those depths in Herzegovina are between 4 and 6 kilometers. The profitability of exploitation at greater depths depends on the cost of exploitation, the price of oil on the market, the transport infrastructure, etc.”, concluded Hrvatović.
(Source: Fokus.ba)
