OMV

The aggregate earnings of seven major EMEA oil companies will fall by 22 percent in 2016, and most integrated firms will see a significant deterioration in credit metrics as weaker downstream performance adds to the impact of lower oil prices on cash flows, said Fitch Ratings in an analysis on April 19. 

The Noble Globetrotter II, the exploration vessel set to carry out the first drilling at the Black Sea block of Khan Asparuh is to be officially shown on Tuesday.

Bulgaria's Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova will also attend the ceremony alongside Total's General Manager for Bulgaria, Xavier Faugeras.

Bulgaria sealed a deal with Royal Dutch Shell on Feb. 23 to explore for oil and gas in an offshore block in the Black Sea in a bid to end its almost total dependence on Russian natural gas.

German businesses are expecting to see a further drop in exports to Russia this year to their lowest level in 10 years, even if companies continue to regard it as a market with enormous potential, a specialist trade organization found on Feb. 19.

French company Total said on Wednesday that it will start drilling for oil and gas off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast between February and May next year.

The first exploration site, part of Khan Asparuh block, will be located about 86 km off the Bulgarian coast, Xavier Faugeras, general manager of Total E&P Bulgaria, said in Varna, presenting the project to the public.   

Further writedowns on Austrian oil and gas group OMV?s ailing Samsun gas power plant in Turkey are possible and the facility could be sold, the head of OMV?s downstream division, Manfred Leitner, told Reuters in an interview.

France's Total is preparing to start drilling for oil and gas off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast in early 2016, Reuters reported.

"It depends on the availability of our contractors when exactly we will start, but everything is going according to the plan," Xavier Faugeras, general manager of Total's Bulgaria division, told Reuters on Monday.

Turkey has developed into a headache for Austria?s OMV, which took a 205 million-euro hit on its Samsun power plant after several quarters of low profits, according to Reuters.

The company?s new chief executive, Rainer Seele, said he saw a ?difficult future? for OMV in Turkey, especially for Samsun, according to Reuters report. 

The Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency announced on Wednesday that a second licensing round will begin in September for exploration areas in both the Adriatic Sea and Slavonia.

The tender will be opened for seven months, during which time interested companies will receive documentation showing the potential for hydrocarbon exploitation and be asked to make a binding offer.

Croatian economy minister Ivan Vrdoljak confirmed on Tuesday that Austrian energy company OMV and US firm Marathon Oil Corporation have decided not to sign contracts for to search for and extract gas and oil from Croatia's Adriatic Sea, one of the country's major energy projects.