Bosnian, US Experts Say Herzegovina Sitting on Huge Oil Reserves

Posted on: Thursday, 22 May 2008, 06:00 CDT

Text of report by Bosnian edition of Croatian daily Vecernji list, on 21 May

[Report by Zdenko Jurilj: "Like Arabia, Hercegovina Sitting on Oil"]

According to a map made by experts of British Petroleum and Amoco, a US research company, the area spanning Glamoc, Livanjsko Polje, Dreznica, Nevesinje, and Neum, and going further to Montenegro and northern Albania, has the biggest oil reserves in Europe.

Vast Reserves

Professor Abdulah Basic, the dean of the Tuzla Technology and Mining Faculty, confirmed that Hercegovina was "swimming" in an oil field whose reserves he vividly compared to those in, say, Saudi Arabia or Iraq. Although these assessments may sound like some joke, papers in possession of foreign experts assure us that there is around 500 million tons of "black gold" lying in an oil reserve at a depth of 4,000-6,000 meters. The soaring price of oil and oil products recently compelled Sarajevo's Energoinvest company - which before the war scouted for oil fields in Bosnia-Hercegovina - to try and reactivate an old oil project that they had worked on together with the Americans. Professor Basic said that first barrels of B-H oil could be extracted in 15 years' time, if not sooner, provided that local authorities were responsive to a project that foreign oil giants dream of.

To confirm his story, Basic told us that, several months ago, British Petroleum experts asked to conduct research in the northern part of Bosnia, in the Posavina area, at the middle soil layer of the former site of the Panonian Sea. According to Basic, the experts decided to do a probe 4,000 meters deep. However, oil reserves in northern Bosnia - in the areas surrounding Tuzla, Bijeljina, Odzak, and Bosanski Samac - are not as big as in Hercegovina. Oil experts said that there were reserves containing 50 million tons of oil in the area of northern Bosnia. What remains to be completed is just 20 per cent of the final probe activities that fully guarantee the total amount of supplies and economic feasibility of exploitation.

To Reduce Import

"Oil research in this part of Bosnia-Hercegovina will certainly be carried out by Russian experts because Russians own the Bosanski Brod Oil Refinery," Basic said

According to estimates, a modernized and privatized oil refinery in Bosanski Brod, together with its foreign partners, will refine in the near future over 4 million tons of oil a year. We should note that Bosnia-Hercegovina annually imports 1.5 million tons of fuel, worth nearly 2 billion convertible marks. Nearly one half of oil products comes to the B-H market from Rijeka and Sisak refineries, and the rest is imported from Serbia, Russia, Hungary, and Slovenia.

[Box, p 9] Oil Documentation in 15 Boxes

Edhem Bicakcic, former B-H Federation prime minister and former Energoinvest director, used his political connections to move from Amoco to Sarajevo the entire documentation pertaining to the company's research of oil fields in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Fifteen boxes of documentation have been stored in Energoinvest's building in Sarajevo.

In Tuzla, Oil, Gas, Gushing in Backyard

Sarajevo - Last year, gas gushed out of the ground in front of a family house in the Tuzla suburb of Gornja Dubrava. Considering that gas always accompanies oil, it is not far from truth that the methane which surfaced in Gornje Dubrave could be an indicator of an oil reserve.

"This gas regularly accompanies oil or appears on its own as earth gas. This methane is a natural gas, and I am in favour of continuing the research. This area is very important; average temperatures are high, and this is another reason why this research should continue," Professor Rasim Delic of the Tuzla University said.

Originally published by Vecernji list (Bosnia-Hercegovina edition), Zagreb, in Croatian 21 May 08.

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Source: BBC Monitoring European