A tender for the development of hydrocarbons on the shelf of the Black Sea on the basis of production sharing agreements (PSA) will be announced on two sites, Roman Opimakh, the head of the State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources, has said.

"At present, based on the results of negotiations with geologists, potential investors, and those who own geological information, we decided that the best option of the shelf offer would be two sections. One of them is 8,300 square kilometers, the other is 7,500 square kilometers," he said when presenting the results of the service's work in 2019 in Kyiv.

The matter, in particular, concerns the North Dolphin and South Dolphin deposits with a total area of 15,000 square kilometers.

"For these two sites, we definitely have seismic information, the list of which we are currently collecting. We have it at state-owned enterprise Ukrgeofizyka, Nauka Naftogaz from Naftogaz Ukrainy, and also at the international company Schlumberger. Actually, we have signed memoranda and the NDA with Schlumberger and Duff & Phelps. We will jointly try to find investors, both foreign and Ukrainian, to implement this project," he said.

It is assumed that this process could start in March, when, as planned, the government will approve competitive conditions. After that, the interdepartmental commission for organizing the signing and implementation of the PSA will have two months to prepare and start the competition.

According to the head of the State Geology Service, after the announcement of the tender, investors will have six months to study information on the sites.

"We propose that the volume of investment for each site be at least $60 million, that is, these are the minimum obligations, but this is still in the process of discussion," Opimakh said.