With an eye on Hungary’s growing onshore development, Croatia has announced the first of three tenders for onshore exploration.
The current license round comprises 14,600 sq km divided into 6 blocks. The country’s Minister of Economy Ivan Vrdoljak is hopeful for Croatia’s reserve potential citing that the Slavonija region was a primary province for crude oil and natural gas in the last 40 years. “The area’s real potential has not been accomplished,” he said.
Hungary and Croatia share similarly sized onshore regions, yet in the Pannonian, Croatia has seen 33% of the number of onshore exploration wells as in Hungary. In addition, Croatia holds only 52% of the recoverable reserves discovered to date in Hungary.
The ministry described its onshore acreage as being underexplored, but proved.
The tender consists of 6 available blocks covering the Drava, East Slavonia, and Sava regions. Each block ranges 2,100–2,600 sq km. Current production exists within every region of the Pannonian basin onshore Croatia, which the ministry cites as proof of a deep hydrocarbon system in the region.
The management board at the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency has made available through its data room 7,000 km of 2D legacy seismic data, 1,400 sq km of 3D seismic data, and data from 500 wells in the prospective regions.
