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INDUSTRY

The signature Tarba Energía reactivates a gas project in Cádiz

The English and Australian capital company investigates the deposit of Tesorillo

LUIS MONTOTOSEVILLAUpdated:07/17/2018 08: 09h

The company Tarba Energía is taking steps forward to extract natural gas in the deposits of Tesorillo and Ruedalabola, in the Cadiz regions of La Janda and Campo de Gibraltar. The starting signal for this project came at the end of 2017, when the British group Prospex Oil signed a purchase option on 49.9% of the rights on these wells to the firm Schuepbach Energy (Australian capital company). After this corporate movement Schuepbach Energy has changed its name to Tarba Energía, which in the coming months expects to obtain the geological information and the necessary permits to accelerate the start-up of this operation.

Cadiz deposits can contain 830,000 million cubic feet of gas (an amount equivalent to almost a year of consumption of this energy source in Spain), although in the best scenario the figure could be almost three times the estimated. Tarba Energía has already hired two specialized companies - GeoProSys and GeoGnosia - to start the first research work on the geology of the subsoil. "These tasks will begin in the short term, as soon as land can be obtained once the exceptionally late harvest season of this year ends in southern Spain," the project's promoters said in a statement.

"When data collection by these two firms is completed, continue to the next stages of processing and interpretation of this information, for which it is expected that the final results are at the end of 2018" . Tarba Energía is also establishing contacts with the University of Granada to complete these studies and "maintains very advanced technical discussions with potential subcontractors to perform the drilling tasks".

Investment

Tarba Energía is developing the entire environmental impact assessment process, for which it has also hired a specialized consultant from Seville (of which it does not mention the name). This phase will entail an investment of four million euros.

The non-executive president of Prospex, Bill Smith, believes that the Tesorillo Project is a relevant deposit that also has an "excellent access to distribution infrastructure to supply the local market." Unlike other Prospex initiatives in Italy or Romania , "the potential resources at Tesorillo are on a much larger scale and the success here would be, therefore, a change of scenery for the company."

One of the evident proofs that this group of international investors is accelerating their plans in Andalusia is in the organizational changes they have made recently. Since 2008, Schuepbach Energy (the company that originally requested these permits) was only a sole proprietorship. In July the company has set up a board of directors, in which all the shareholders are represented, and began the change of name for Tarba Energía . It is also in the process of developing a new website to explain the details of the Tesorillo Project.

The deposits of Tesorillo and Ruedalabola are contiguous and extend along 34,000 hectares in the municipal districts of Los Barrios, Vejer, Medina, Benalup or Alcalá de los Gazules. In the 1960s the Valdebro company carried out four drilling projects at depths between 1,100 and 3,450 square meters, with which there is previous evidence of resources in the area. Since the beginning of this new initiative, the Tesorillo project has aroused the opposition of conservation groups, such as Verdemar Ecologistas en Acción .