Total Delays Black Sea Offshore Drilling

Total SA has announced that it will delay plans to drill for oil and gas at an exploration block in Bulgaria's Black Sea.

The French major has cancelled tenders for drilling services in the 1-21 Han Asparuh block in a move prompted by a fall in global oil prices.

"Due to the significant and incessant decline in the prices of oil globally in the past months ... the companies unanimously decided to change the budget and the working schedule for 2015 and postpone the start of the drilling programme for 2016," read a note from Total.

Tenders are likely to be reopened in the first quarter of 2015 with a view to the first drilling starting in the first quarter of 2016.

Total, together with Repsol and OMV won a bid for the exploration of 1-21 Han Asparuh in July 2012. Total, with 40% interest, is the operator of the drilling phase. OMV and Total hold 30% each.

The 14,440 sq km Han Asparuh block is only 15 km from OMV's Neptun block in Romanian waters. In April 2103, OMV's Romanian unit, OMV Petrom and ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited (EMEPRL) announced that the supplementary evaluation of the results from Domino-1, the first exploration well drilled at depth in the Black Sea, located in the Neptun perimeter, has provided a preliminary estimation of the potential gas production of approximately 630 million cubic feet per day, (6.5 bcm annually).