Small companies – huge dreams

By Gjergj Erebara in Tirana

This is now usual news. A new company, which had not even a webpage, had promised USD 500m investments in oil & gas industry in Albania. Stream Oil & Gas Ltd, a Canadian based company, announced today in Tirana that intends to redevelop three oil fields and one gas field in Albania, investing USD 200m for extraction and a further 300m to build gas fired thermal power plants.

Ministry of Economy of Albania, in its yearly report 2006) said that “gas resources in Albania are at the end of their life and that exploration to find new gas sources has been unsuccessful till now”. So, the second part of promised investments, that 300m USD to build power plants, depends if the company will find new gas sources.

Another company, Manas Petroleum, announced in January that had made e huge finds in Albanian soil, discovering some billions of barels of oil. That company created by a geologist, intends to begin drills in Albania, and now is in search of investors more that oil. Another company, MEDoil, intends to explore in the Sea near Saranda.

Albanian government had allowed several big companies to explore for oil and gas after ‘90s. Shevron, Corparex and Occidental Petroleum among others had invested USD 385m searching oil and gas, but had not found something useful. But with oil prices at historical height, small companies intends to find oil there where big ones were unsuccessful.