Greece’s second international licensing round

An announcement on the second Greek offshore licensing round is expected this month.

 The Greek Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change announced the round would be launched upon publication of the Notice of the Call for Tenders in the Official Journal of the European Union, which is anticipated soon. The licensing round will include 20 blocks offshore the Ionian Sea off western Greece and south of Crete.

The total acreage is estimated at 101,091.3km.  Each block acreage ranges from 1801sq km to 9543sq km.

After publication, the licensing round will close six months after. The Ministry is expecting the evaluation of bids to last three months from the application deadline and expects to execute lease agreements three months following that.

Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) acquired a total of 12,347km of 2D seismic data, in addition to 9720km of re-processed legacy 2D seismic data and 13,015km of legacy data tied to existing offshore wells. According to PGS, the data forms a Greece MegaProject, providing a one-shop-stop information package for understanding and assessing the petroleum geology and prospectivity of offshore Greece.

As part of the data package, the Ministry has provided well information for 19 historic wells that are outside of any currently licensed acreage.

Exploration permits have a duration of eight years, split into three phases: three, three and two years. Upon progressing to the subsequent exploration phase, between 20% and 50% of the licensed area must be relinquished.

This is the first international licensing round in almost 20 years following the first International Licensing Round in 1996. An Open Door Round was followed in 2012. 

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