France’s Total will start hydrocarbon drilling at the Bulgarian Black Sea block Khan Asparuh in the second half of 2015, according to Paul Sexton, Exploration Manager at Total E&P Bulgaria.

Sexton, as cited by the BGNES news agency, presented the progress of the exploration activities, saying that the company had wrapped up 3D studies and the data was yet to be analyzed.

He said that the first drilling operations were to be conducted using semi-submersible rig or drillships.

Sexton noted that the production of oil or gas could start in 5 or 10 years at the earliest after discovery.

A consortium of France’s Total, Austria’s OMV and Spain’s Repsol won an oil and gas exploration license for the Khan Asparuh block in July 2012.