Find Oil and Gas expertise in Malta

In the 1930s, geologists suggested that the rock structure of the Maltese islands could indicate the presence of oil and gas fields, with exploratory drilling beginning in the 1950s. However, no reserves of onshore oil or gas were discovered, so attention turned to the potential of offshore drilling. In the 1970s and 80s, exploratory offshore drilling discovered oil and gas, but of insufficient quantities to be commercially viable.

Consequently, Malta’s oil upstream industry has never got off the ground. No large reserves of gas have ever been identified. Small oil fields have been discovered in and around Maltese territory, particularly in the Mediterranean Sea close to the Libyan and Italian borders. This has led to disputes, notably between Malta and Libya in 2008, over the Medina Bank that straddles their territories. However, very little oil has been extracted in Maltese waters to date.

There have been efforts by the current government over the last two years to attract oil companies to Malta’s shores, spurred on by an independent report in 2012, estimating that there are 260 million barrels of oil in Maltese territory. Genel Energy and Mediterranean Oil and Gas have signed an agreement with the government to drill a well in the central Mediterranean area.

Malta does, however, offer oil-bunkering services to passing ships (oil for use on ships, as opposed to oil carried as cargo), due to its strategic location in the Mediterranean. Oil for bunkering, and all of Malta’s domestic oil requirements, are imported.