Interfax News Agency, Russia
Oct 24 2008
Blackstairs Energy to begin drilling in Armenia in 2010
YEREVAN Oct 24
Ireland’s Blackstairs Energy plans to begin drilling operations in
Armenia in 2010, Tim Papworth, the general director of Blackstairs
Energy Armenia, told Interfax.
The company will perform 170 running kilometers of seismic surveying
in 2009. Preliminary information suggests Armenia may have both oil
and gas deposits, but more exploration needs to be done, Papworth
said.
The company is currently conducting geological and geophysical
research of the structures that are most likely to contain oil and
gas.
Blackstairs Energy has contracted the Institute of Seismic and
Engineering Geophysics of the Armenian Academy of Sciences to carry
out gravimetric research.
To date the company has received satellite imagery and compiled a
geological profile. Blackstairs Energy has invested about $1 million
in oil exploration in Armenia since June 2007.
On April 27, 2007 the Energy Ministry and Environmental Protection
Ministry signed an agreement with Blackstairs Energy on oil and gas
exploration in Armenia.
Blackstairs Energy will explore for oil and gas in the fourth, fifth
and sixth blocks in central and southern Armenia covering 13,775
square kilometers – nearly half of the total land area of the
republic.
The territory of Armenia has been divided up into six license blocks.