RIGA - The Economy Ministry last week announced a tender for the license to explore and extract oil in western Latvia.
Bids for the license, which covers a 162.3-hectare area in the region of Durbe near Liepaja, are welcome until January 10, 2005.
The land was discovered years ago when Soviet-era seismic work and test drilling concluded that the earth could contain viable hydrocarbon reserves. Fourteen different proprietors have agreed to let their land be used for crude oil exploration and extraction.
The location is situated very close to the Gudenieki deposits, a 100-hectare area that is considered to have the best drilling plots in the country.
Until now no oil has been commercially extracted from neither in Latvia nor in its commercial waters. There are, however, a number of oil drilling companies in Lithuania and platform drilling in the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad.
Previously Latvia has offered very few licenses for oil exploration and drilling at sea.
Crude oil deposits in Latvia are considered to be of better quality than the crude in many of Russia's deposits, which can contain large amounts of sulfur. It is believed that the size and capacity of the deposits are not significant.
