Dry borehole muštułuk for Ulcinj

Ulcinj does not need platforms and wells, let them look for oil in some other places, says leading Ulcinj ecologist Dželal Hodžić regarding official information from the Government that the well between Ulcinj and Bar is dry.

The State Secretary for Energy and Mining in the Ministry of Capital Investments, Marko Perunović, recently announced that the production of hydrocarbons in the field drilled by the consortium of companies Eni and Novatek in the Montenegrin sea will not be possible, because the well is dry, according to the information of the concessionaire. He did not rule out the possibility that the past research could be used to find some other location in the sea of ​​Montenegro, which would eventually be profitable for the production of hydrocarbons...

Hodžić assessed that Montenegro should turn to renewable energy sources, such as wind power plants, hydropower plants and solar energy, bearing in mind that coal and oil are treated as pollutants everywhere in the world.

"And while Germany is starting to close thermal power plants, we want to look for oil in the clean Adriatic, knowing that even nuclear power plants are less harmful than wells," Hodžić told Vijesta.

He claims that his opinion is shared by the majority of Ulcinians.

"We need tourism - health, sports, extreme, we need healthy food, we need clean and unpolluted nature. We have all that, and if we know and want to, we don't need anything more, let alone boreholes," said Hodžić.

He cited as an example the Greek island of Crete, which, he says, was destroyed in the Second World War.

"The island is literally made of stone, but 600 thousand people live there today from tourism and a little from agriculture. They didn't even have olive trees, they only recently started planting them. But they have history and they know how to cash in on it because they say that Greek history is the mother of Europe," said Hodžić.

Perunović, as "Vijesti" previously reported, said that the concessionaires had reached the end of the well and sent the collected samples to Milan, but that the report was not ready yet.

"The official report from them did not arrive, but we had a presentation where their management definitively told us that porosity and permeability are the basic characteristics of the deposit, that they are very unfavorable and that they are not what they, and we - expected. They consider that well a so-called dry well or dry hole", stated Perunović at the time.

As for production from that well, he said it was not possible.

"Eni and Novatek will work on the development of that deposit and look at the migration path of those hydrocarbons. We will see if we can use these data and analyzes in order to see in the future whether what we were looking for exists in another locality," explained Perunović.

The Italian-Russian consortium of companies Eni and Novatek started the first exploratory oil drilling in the Montenegrin sea in March last year.

In December, the government approved the extension of the first exploration period of the hydrocarbon production concession contract by six months, due to difficulties of an operational and geological nature encountered during the drilling process.

Perunović said that the Eni and Novatek consortium had completed the cementing part of the well itself and had slowly started preparing for the demobilization of the drilling facility. He also stated that the concessionaire is obliged to deliver final results in the next six months, which, apparently, "will not be good in terms of potential production".

The consortium Eni and Novatek should now submit the work plan they completed on that well. After the audit of whether everything was done according to the plan and program, the bank guarantee of 73 million euros will be returned to him, which, as previously announced, is in the safe of the Ministry of Economic Development.

"When he finishes the first phase, he is contractually obligated to enter the second, where he will have to deposit a bank guarantee worth 12 million euros, which he should use to drill a second, shallower gas well, 1,5 thousand meters long," said Perunović, stating that he has no information whether the concessionaire will drill that well or not.

The second exploration of the Montenegrin seabed was also commissioned by the company Energean in blocks 26 and 30. It should inform the Ministry by March 15 whether they have found a partner for exploratory drilling.

The parliamentary working group has not started its work yet

The members of the Ulcinj Assembly adopted a conclusion on the formation of a working group that was supposed to submit a report after a comprehensive analysis, but according to "Vijesti" knowledge, the working group has not even started its work yet.

In March of last year, the Force councilor club submitted an initiative to the local Assembly to include the issue related to oil and gas exploration in the agenda at the first following session and to adopt conclusions on the matter.

In the explanation of the initiative, it was stated that it is becoming clear that, in addition to the centralization of power at all levels, contrary to all national and international laws and conventions, the indigenous minority population in Ulcinj has no right to make decisions about the future of the city and its citizens.

"Represented at the state level through its representative and in the Assembly of Ulcinj with its councilors, Forca does not deviate from the defense of our goals, which are the postulates of the development and preservation of the identity of our indigenous people and the defense of our natural, economic, cultural and national potentials. All of this should, above all, be in the service of the development and well-being of the citizens of Ulcinj", said the statement of the Force.

Čapuni: It is unclear that they would continue to drill after four crashes

The former president of the SO Ulcinj, Ilir Čapuni, assessed that the state government, with its unconstitutional decisions on oil exploration in the sea, without asking the locals, is continuously proving its stepmotherly attitude towards the southernmost municipality.

He also said that he is unclear about the research statistics that he hopes for success after four failures.

"Ulcinj has lived in harmony with nature for centuries, and oil and gas exploration is a direct blow to the perspective and economy of the city. The news that this well is empty, although joyful, does not surprise us. Let's remember that it is the fourth in a row in this territory. The first was in Bašbuljuk, the second was the Panon platform, and the third at the entrance to Valdanos. It is interesting that the Montenegrin governments in the last 100 years are very persistent in drilling and exploring for oil in Ulcinj, but they are not so persistent in building a normal port in a city that carries 95 percent of the total maritime history of the coast of Montenegro. Capuni told "Vijesta".

Because of this, he stated, the people of Ulcinj do not have a single trawler, so fishermen from other cities fish professionally along its coast.

"For this reason, Ulcinj has no income from nautical tourism either, because due to the lack of a customs office and a border point on the pier, vessels must be checked out or registered in Bar and Ulcinj can be viewed from the open sea".

He claims that the decision on research is unconstitutional because it was not made in a regular procedure in which the citizens of Ulcinj could express their position and decide on the direction of the city's development. He explained that when he says that, he means the public discussion and consultations and the fact that the decisions are contrary to all the strategic development plans of the Municipality of Ulcinj.

"Furthermore, Ulcinj is not just any town on the coast. It is a city with a multi-millennium documented history, a city that has the greatest development potential and a city where the people base their economy on tourism. Unfortunately, from the Berlin Congress onwards, the citizens of Ulcinj are constantly being forced to face some fait accompli and accept decisions that are made about them without them".

He adds that the people of Ulcinj now officially know that Montenegro does not have any resources in case of any disaster.