UK Company Melrose Finds New Natural Gas Deposit in Bulgaria's Kavarna / Legal Services in Bulgaria

UK Company Melrose Finds New Natural Gas Deposit in Bulgaria's Kavarna

by Sofia News Agency www.novinite.com

The Scottish company Melrose Resources has discovered a significant natural gas deposit close to the Bulgarian Black Sea town of Kavarna. The news was reported Thursday by The Scotsman, which cited an official announcement of the Edinburgh-based company made Wednesday. Preliminary estimates show the new deposit in the Kavarna exploration permit has about 24 billion cubic feet (679,604321 million cubic meters) of natural gas. The Scottish oil and gas company Melrouse supplies 15% of Bulgaria's natural gas from the Galata field close to the Black Sea city of Varna that it operates. It plans to expand the Galata field in order to turn into a storage facility. The natural gas from the newly found deposit in Kavarna will be piped to the facilities at Galata during the 2009 summer, and will then be sold in the winter after that when the energy demand rises. Melrose Resources still needs to negotiate the final terms of usage of the Galata facility with the Bulgarian government but its CEO David Thomas is quoted as saying the deal was expected to be finalized smoothly. In his words, the Bulgarian authorities were motivated by strategic considerations in expanding the Galata natural gas storage facility in order to abide by EU guidelines, and to secure some independence from the Russian energy giant Gazprom, which supplies more than 80% of Bulgaria's gas. The Scotsman article points out the newly found deposit at Kavarna came exactly when the Galata field was almost depleted. Melrose has not revealed how much its new deal with the Bulgarian government would be worth but according to some estimates it might be worth GBP 60 M.