Swiss Petroleum Company Finds “Huge” Oil Deposits in Northern, Central Albania

Text of report by Albanian privately-owned independent newspaper Koha Jone, on 11 January

[Report by Blerina Hoxha: "Oil, Huge Deposits Found in Patos- Marinze"]

Albania is more and more seen as a country with potentially important fossil fuel reserves, especially oil and gas.

The Swiss Manas Petroleum Corporation yesterday came out with an official statement that it has discovered the equivalent of 2.987 billion barrels of oil in the A, B, D, and E blocks in the Patos- Marinez area of Albania.

These results were published yesterday on the Manas Petroleum Internet page by Gustavson Associates, LTD, a company conducting geological surveys on behalf of Manas Petroleum.

The Gustavson Associates note that, because of the depth of the deposits, there must also be huge reserves of natural gas. “In this case of oil with a gas cap, Gustavson calculates the possible resources to total 1.4 billion barrels of light oil and 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas,” a press release published in the www.manaspetroleum.com[1] site says.

“The prospecting has brought to light fractured carbonates similar to those detected in the Apennines of Italy,” the company announces.

Some prospecting was also done by the Shell and Coparex companies, which found a deep fold underneath the hard structures.

According to estimates, the extraction of oil from these structures may reach 820 million barrels.

The Swiss company carried out prospecting in the oil-bearing Patos-Marinez area after Shell and Coparex decided to quit following the conflict in Kosova [Kosovo] in 1999.

“The chances of success are still to be assessed due to the hardness of the rock of the oil-bearing layers underneath,” the survey report says.

The Swiss company is examining the report from the Gustavson Associates and, within a few weeks, is expected to come out with a statement on the feasibility of exploitation of the oil-bearing layers in Albania.

In the meantime, the company is preparing a working programme which takes into consideration the seismic character of the area in order to start drilling oil extraction.

Originally published by Koha Jone, Tirana, in Albanian 11 Jan 08 p19.

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