TUZLA, Bosnia (May 22 ,2008) - Dean of the Faculty of Technology and Mining in the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla, Abdulah Basic, told Bosnian media yesterday that some 500 million tonnes of oil could be located in several locations in the northern Bosnia as well as further in the southern Bosnia in a the depth of between 4,000 and 6,000 metres.His comments were triggered by an incident on May 12, when a man digging a water well in the village of Kadrici near Tuzla, hit a pocket of natural gas. The gas ignited creating a column of fire which according to eyewitnesses was at least 20 metres high.In the past, local media have occasionally touched upon the possibility of oil deposits under Bosnia. According to several Bosnian experts, British Petroleum (BP) and American Oil Company, AMOCO, now also part of BP, were interested in potential oil resources in Bosnia before the 1992-1995 Serbian,Montenegrin and Croatian aggressions against Bosnia.
In cooperation with these two companies, one of the biggest Bosnian construction companies, Energoinvest, carried out a research which proved the existence of oil pools in the northern region of Posavina, as well as in several locations in the south.
Basic says that Energoinvest still has the original report which indicates that Bosnia may have oil resources as big as Saudi Arabia or Iraq.
Yet even after the end of the war, neither the Bosnian government nor international companies showed interest to continue with the research. However this may be changing with the recent skyrocketing of oil and food prices on global markets.
“First barrels of oil from Bosnia could be excavated as soon as the next 15 years, under the condition that local governments have an interest in this,” Basic stated.
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