CAPITAL: Zagreb

MONETARY UNIT: Kuna

REFINING CAPACITY: 235,900 b/cd

OIL PRODUCTION: 29,600 b/d

OIL RESERVES: 99 million bbl

GAS RESERVES: 1.2 tcf

Italian and Croatian state firms were planning the Gas Energy Adria (GEA) project, a natural gas transportation system from Italy to Croatia, with possible expansion to other countries.

The $330 million project initially would involve a 330-km gas pipeline, of which 130 km would be across the Adriatic Sea.

Snam, the natural gas arm of Italy`s ENI, and INA, the Croatian national oil and gas company, also were to cooperate in marketing the gas. They signed a deal for sale of 78 bcf/year to INA.

The GEA project would allow ENI to expand to a new market and let Croatia and neighboring countries integrate their gas pipeline systems into the European gas grid, thus diversifying supplies. The system also would allow Croatia to use gas at new combined-cycle power plants.

Croatia offered to export Russian oil through Croatian territory to the Adriatic Sea. Under the project, the Druzhba pipeline, bringing oil from Russia to central Europe, would be connected to the Adria pipeline from the Adriatic coast, and the oil flow in the Adria pipeline would be reversed.

The project would allow Russian oil to bypass the Turkish-controlled Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.

INA installed a platform jacket in Ivana gas field off Croatia. The platform, 40 km west of Pola, was Croatia`s first offshore production facility.

Ivana`s reserves were about 7.8 billion cu m. INA and ENI co-owned the platform through a production-sharing agreement signed in 1996. Production was to begin in 1999, followed by the laying of a Pavenna-to-Pola subsea pipeline.

Shell Oil Co. planned to open about 40 retail outlets in Croatia over 4 years. Total project costs were estimated at $70 million.

Two refineries in the area of Sisak, southeast of Zagreb, would supply Shell with products.

Hungary`s MOL was negotiating to build a $40 million gas distribution system in Osijek and 10 smaller towns in a consortium with Ruhrgas and VEW Energie, both of Germany.