The gas resources discovered in the Black Sea by ExxonMobil and Lukoil amount to maximum 130 billion cubic meters and will exhaust in 20 years, said Alexandru Patruti, an adviser for the Romanian National Committee of the World Energy Council (WEC).

“The Black Sea will certainly not be the second North Sea. Exploration work has paid off only in Romania. In Turkey, which has the largest part of the Black Sea, exploration showed no results,” he said, reports local Agerpres.

The exploitation work in the Black Sea will begin only if the gas and oil prices will increase, and if the gas transport system will be connected to international markets, the adviser added.

“The demand in the country has dropped a lot, and investors that will extract these deposits need outlet markets and ways to transport the gases from the sea platforms which are quite far, some 150-200 km from the shore,” according to Patruti.

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