Croatia issues permits for five geothermal exploration areas
Fields at Mala Subotica village in Medimurje County, Croatia (source: Silverije, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Carlo Cariaga
3 Oct 2023
Five geothermal exploration licenses have been granted by the Croatian government following a public tender that ran until June 2023.
The Ministry of Economics and Sustainable Development of Croatia has issued permits for the exploration of geothermal waters in five pre-identified areas. The permits were granted to three companies as follows:
- Oil and gas company INA – Industrija nafte d.d. for the “Lescan” and “Medimurje 5” areas;
- Geothermal developer IGeoPen for the “Pcelic” and “Sjece” areas; and
- Viola Energy Generation doo (the bidder relies on a Turkish company) for the “Kotoriba” area.
No bids were received for the “Ferdinandovac” area, so the bidding for the site was canceled. The official results of the tender and the issued permits can be accessed at the Ministry of Economics and Sustainable Development website.
The tender for the six geothermal exploration blocks was administered by the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency (AZU) and ran from December 2022 to June 2023. The Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development is the holder, and the Hydrocarbons Agency is the operational body that conducted the tender.
The tender received 16 offers from 11 different bidders for five of the six offered research areas. In addition to renowned domestic companies, the bidders included a large number of foreign and European companies with rich experience in developing geothermal energy projects.
The total works include the construction of 21 geothermal wells , and the value of the offered exploration works is EUR 191.7 million. The total value of investments in the case of positive research results and established potential, as well as project realization in its entirety, amounts to over EUR 400 million.
Source: AZU
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