American-Austrian Consortium Pulls Out of Adriatic Oil Drilling Contract
- by croatiaweek
- in Latest
One of the consortiums issued contracts to explore and exploit oil and gas in Croatia’s Adriatic has pulled out of the project…
The American-Austrian consortium of Marathon Oil and OMV, who were issued with 7 out of the 10 licences earlier this year, will not sign the contract because of an ongoing border dispute Croatia has with Montenegro.
Croatia’s Hydrocarbon Agency confirmed the consortium’s decision, which comes just days after Croatia pulled out of arbitration regarding a border dispute with Slovenia, and announced that they would put forward another tender in the autumn.
“We can confirm the information that the Marathon Oil – OMV consortium have pulled out of signing the contract. They have pulled out because security was not acceptable to them after what we could offer regarding the possible problem with the border with Montenegro. We expect the other companies to sign the contracts in September,” Barbara Dorić, head of Croatia’s Hydrocarbon Agency told RTL, before adding that they would be releasing another tender for the contracts in the autumn.
Italian multinational ENI, London-based Medoilgas, and INA, owned by the Croatian government and Hungary’s MOL, were also awarded licences.
