The government of Croatia has withdrawn from Croatian oil and gas company INA — a unit of Hungarian peer MOL — the exploration license for three areas in the northwest of the country, Croatian daily Vecernji List said on its website on Saturday.
The fields are thought to contain about 80 billion cubic meters of gas, the paper said.
The paper said the licenses were withdrawn because exploration had not yet started on 90% of the area, even though the deadline for doing so was in March.
Croatian industry insiders blamed the loss of the license on MOL, “because it isn’t interested in INA’s growth” until it can take over full control of the company.