Exxon Mobil Corp., Falcon Oil and Gas Ltd. And Mol Nyrt. could provide Western Europe Hungarian natural to compensate the shortage of gas supplies in a region more and more concerned with the reduction of Russian exports.
Mako Trough area holds as much gas as the total demand of Germany for three years, may start exporting fuel to Serbia and Austria. Mostly, the fields will meet domestic needs once they are in for operation in 2012 Mako fields take an area double the size of Los Angeles and their gas could decrease European dependance on OAO Gazprom’s gas imports. Currently, the European Union is the second largest energy consumer only after the United States. For the past five years its demand has raised by 10 %.
The urgency for finding alternative fuel sources has been prompted by the Gazprom cut the gas shipping to Ukraine in 2006 over a pricing argument.
Rising energy prices are pushing producers to drill for ledges in more geographically ambitious locations. Gas increased by about 22 % in the first quarter comapred to one year earlier. Meanwhile, crude oil climbed by 98 % in the past year and reached the record $122.73 per barrel yesterday.
According to Mol., Mako fields contain not less 340 billion cubic meters of gas around 30 % of which is economically recoverable at current prices. Scotia Consultancy Company estimated two days ago that with more than 50 % probability the shelves held about 1.2 trillion cubic meters. Hungary imports 78 percent of gas as Gazprom last year sold 7.5 billion cubic meters of gas to the nation which is about 70 percent of the total imports.
Gazprom and Eni SpA of Italy have signed agreements with the governments of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary to participate in the project of South Stream, a 900-kilometer long pipeline that will pass under the Black Sea and will link Russia to the Balkans, where it will split into northern and southern sleeves.