Eni Albania, the subsidiary of Italian gas and oil company Eni, has revised the deadlines for the preparatory works for the Dumrea Deep 1 research oil well, announcing that they will take place in December 2024.

Earlier, in a public document, the company admitted that these works would take place at the end of the year we left behind. It seems that the procedures have been postponed in time to complete the necessary stage of consultations and now, with a new document, Eni Albania has made known the other details of the investment related to the hydrocarbon agreement it has with the Albanian state.

As per the April document, the closest settlements to the project area are the village of Broshke, approximately 600 m northwest of the drilling site, and the village of Murras, approximately 700 m northeast of the drilling site. About 1.8 km southeast of the drilling site is the village of Valas. The same document provides that the area of land where the well will be drilled and other additional equipment will be located (including the area where the water/drilling fluid tanks will be located) will be approximately 20,000 m2.

The company's revised document that was submitted to authorities provides some new details regarding the project's possible timeline for the exploratory well.

The preparatory works are expected to start in December 2024 and end in the 1st quarter of 2025; Mobilization: transportation of the drilling probe and auxiliary equipment to the drilling site, assembly of the drilling probe, inspection and approval by qualified third parties, in Q1-Q2 of 2025 (approximately 40 days); Drilling time: approximately 211 days including shut-in and well abandonment.

At the end of the operations, the well will be isolated and the field will be restored to its original use condition (the condition before the start of drilling operations). Well abandonment procedures, i.e. dismantling of the wellbore and demobilization of equipment and services normally take 24-30 days. It will take about 4-6 months to restore the location of the well site and the accommodation camp to its original condition.

The government, which has been offering free oil blocks for some time, managed to sign with the Italian company ENI in 2019 an agreement with new conditions according to the new framework, different from the existing ones and which Albania is expected to benefit more.

This means that in case of the discovery of oil and the start of production, our country benefits from the first barrel and does not wait for the company to withdraw the investment.

At the time when the agreement was signed, the Albanian government declared that it had been agreed with the company that the benefit would not only be in financial terms by receiving more money in the budget but also in terms of human capital.