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Brief history of the country
Malta (the Republic of Malta), is an island state in the Mediterranean Sea south of Italy, east of Tunisia and north of Libya. The country was awarded the George Cross in 1942 for bravery in World War 2.
Malta was first settled in 5,200 BC by farmers from Sicily. It was used as a trade route before being conquered by Rome in 218 BC. After the fall of the Roman Empire it was run by Vandals, Ostrogoths or Byzantines until 870, when it fell to Muslims from Sicily.
Captured by Normans in 1091, it became part of the Kingdom of Sicily from which Muslims were expelled. It was then run by a German dynasty from 1194 and by Spain from 1282.
In 1530 the Holy Roman Emperor gave the islands to the Knights of Malta (who had lost Rhodes) and the Knights withstood the Great Siege of Malta by the Ottomans in 1565. Their reign ended when Napoleon invaded in 1798.
In 1814, in the Treaty of Paris, Malta became a part of the British Empire. Britain saw Malta’s strategic importance and during World War 2, in particular, it played an important role of defence in the Mediterranean.
Malta gained independence from the UK in 1964 as a Commonwealth Realm but declared itself a republic in 1974, joining the EU in 2004 and the Euro in 2008. The economy relies on trade, manufacturing and tourism.
Oil and gas summary
Malta is an archipelago in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. The 3 largest islands of low hills and terraced fields are Malta, Gozo and Comino.
They are high points on the Malta plateau, a shallow limestone shelf that was a land bridge between Sicily and North Africa which was flooded when sea levels rose after the last Ice Age. The area is within the zone of the colliding Eurasian and African tectonic plates.
A few dry onshore wells have been drilled. Some offshore drilling has also been carried out since 1971 without success. The country may have some potential in the deeper waters of the Mediterranean Sea near the offshore borders with Libya and Tunisia to the south and Sicily to the north, and additional drilling is planned.
However, Malta currently has no identified indigenous oil or gas resources, either onshore or offshore. No production is currently forecast by Globalshift and none is likely, certainly in the short and medium term.
MALTA
Map and National Flag
VALLETTA
Grand Harbour
Southern Europe
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Valletta
0.45 mm
316
None
None
40
None
Government
Malta is a republic whose parliamentary system and public administration are modelled on the UK system.
The unicameral 69-member House of Representatives is elected every 5 years. The President is appointed for a 5-year term by the House of Representatives and is largely ceremonial.
Oil exploration in Malta is overseen by the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs.
Geology and History of Exploration
Onshore Malta is composed of carbonate sediments laid down in a shallow marine environment. This sedimentary platform was formed during the Triassic and continued up to the Miocene.
The Maltese islands and their offshore waters comprise several Late Triassic to Early Jurassic pull-apart basins that overlap into Libya, Tunisia and Sicily. Triassic rifting of Pangaea in an east-west direction produced the Tethys Sea. River sediments and reef deposits were laid down on this early ocean bed.
The northward movement of what is now the African continent led to the destruction of most of Tethys. The collision zone between Eurasia and Africa uplifted Malta which is crossed by several fault systems representing the effects of rift and uplift episodes.
Globalshift recognises that potential source rocks of Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic age were deposited in the basins. These are known to source the oil in the Ragusa Basin of Italy which extends into several Maltese blocks in the north. A similar basin, Melita-Medina, is present in the south where Jurassic faulting is present.
Triassic carbonates, as found in the Ragusa field in Sicily, are potential reservoirs but may be too deep in Malta. Jurassic carbonates are expected on the flanks of the basins and Cretaceous reefal carbonates may also be potential reservoirs. Tertiary sediments, productive in Tunisia could also hold reservoirs.
History - Exploration began in Malta in 1953 after the discovery of oil in Triassic dolomites at the Ragusa field in southeast Sicily. Concessions were granted to BP over the whole of the land area and between 1955 and 1959 three shallow stratigraphic wells and one deep well were drilled.
The deep well penetrated Cretaceous limestones but failed to reach the Triassic objective and BP gave up its licences in 1959.
In 1964 Shell began to explore the offshore area and other companies followed suit. Nine offshore wells were drilled between 1971 and 2002 in both the north and south by a range of international companies. These wells had Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic objectives and a number had oil and gas shows but none resulted in commercial discoveries.
Meanwhile in 1998 the Maltese government drilled a well on Gozo. It had gas shows but failed to produce sufficient gas for development. In 2014, 12 years after the previous well, Mediterranean Oil and Gas (MOG) drilled the Hagar Qim well south of the island in Area 4 targeted at Eocene sediments but this was also dry and MOG left the area.
Although there has been no success offshore, Maltese companies remain interested in areas that lie close to the borders with Tunisia, Libya and Sicily. In 2006 Malta and Tunisia signed an agreement on joint oil exploration in zones of the continental shelf that lie between them. No agreement with Libya has been finalised.