Zeta Petroleum, Cooper Energy Limited to inject USD 16 mln in Buzau natural gas field

Oil and gas company Zeta Petroleum plans to start works on the Romanian natural gas field Bobocu, in Buzau county. Its partner company Cooper Energy Limited will invest a minimum of USD 16 million in the first development phase of the natural gas field. Zeta signed a concession agreement with the National Agency of Minerals and Resources in Romania in 2007 for the Bobocu field. Zeta was granted an enlargement of the Bobocu concession in 2008. The Bobocu concession contains a mature biogenic gas field that Zeta intends to bring back into production by drilling new development wells and, where possible, working over existing wells. The Bobocu gas field was discovered by Romgaz in 1966. It was placed on production in 1977 but was abandoned in 1995 due to problems of sand influx in well boreholes from producing reservoirs. Zeta is now working towards drilling a new well in the field in Q4 2011, according to company data. It has other projects in Romania: the Jimbolia oil and gas field, 40 km from Timisoara, in Western Romania. The Jimbolia concession contains two fields discovered by Petrom in 1983 and later abandoned in 2002: Jimbolia Veche and Jimbolia Vest. These are both marginal oil and gas fields that Zeta currently evaluates in order to include them in production. Another project is Padureni, also based on a concession contract from 2007. In 2009, Zeta farmed-out 87.5 percent of its interest in the Padureni concession to Expert Petroleum, which now operates the concession. The company also holds prospecting permits in the Moldava area of Romania: Falticeni, Faurei and Vaslui. editor@romania-insider.com