The country’s prime minister announced on Tuesday that Shell had discovered an important gas and oil basin in southern Albania, although it was noted that details about the extraction potential will only be known at the end of the year.
“The important oil discovery at Spirag, at a depth of 6.1 km, holds great promise to extract great wealth for Albania and the Albanians,” Edi Rama wrote on Facebook. According to the prime minister, a sovereign fund will be established, in the event that the discovery is confirmed, to manage the resources resulting from oil, similar to countries such as Norway, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
It is estimated that in the past ten years Albania extracted 1 million tons of oil annually, compared to 2.5 million tons extracted in the 1970s, during the communist dictatorship.
Albania exports most of the oil it extracts and has to import crude oil and its derivatives, since the country’s main refinery stopped working in 2019. Almost all of Albania’s energy (98%) comes from hydroelectric power plants built in the communist era, and the country lacks electricity. International gas pipeline connections.
After the democratization of the country, 30 years ago, the energy sector has been the target of privatizations, many of them arbitrary, which are believed to have harmed one of the most developed sectors in the country during the period of dictatorship.
torrent // pega
Lusa / the end
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