Markets | Tuesday Feb 23, 2016
Bulgaria sealed a deal with Royal Dutch Shell on Tuesday to explore for oil and gas in an offshore block in the Black Sea in a bid to end its almost total dependence on Russian natural gas.
Shell won a tender for a five-year permit for deepwater exploration at the 1-14 Silistar block that covers 7,000 square km in September and pledged to invest 18.6 million euros ($20.5 million) in seismic surveys.
“The licence that we have been awarded today allows us to evaluate the potential for oil and gas in offshore Bulgaria. This process can be quite a long process and with much uncertainty,” said Eileen Wilkinson, regional director at Shell International Exploration and Production, after the signing.
French oil company Total, together with its partners Austria’s OMV and Spain’s Repsol, plans to start drilling for gas and oil in Bulgaria’s biggest offshore block in the Black Sea, 1-21 Han Asparuh, by June.
Silistar is near a block in Romanian waters where OMV has said it could produce up to 84 billion cubic metres of gas, raising Bulgaria’s hopes it will be able to exploit reserves off its coast to diversify its energy supplies.
Bulgaria is building a gas pipeline with Greece and is overhauling its gas transport network in the hope of becoming a regional gas hub and transporting Russian and Caspian gas, as well as gas it finds at its Black Sea blocks, to central Europe.
At present, the EU’s poorest country meets over 95 percent of its gas needs with imports from Russia’s Gazprom, which also come only via one route – a situation that its allies in Brussels and Washington want to see changed.
“Now nobody can say that Bulgaria is not working actively to diversify its supplies of oil and gas,” Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, who attended the signing, said.
($1 = 0.9094 euros) (Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Radu Marinas and Mark Potter)
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
