"The tender has not been launched yet, because we are yet to get the tender commission's approval for the terms and conditions. We expect to announce the tender by the end of April," Juozas Mockevičius, director of the Geological Service, told BNS.
Earlier, the service had planned to issue the tender by the end of March.
The winner of the international tender would be licensed to explore for and extract shale gas on a 1,737-kilometer area in the western part of the country, close to the borer with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad
Local oil producers - Minijos Nafta and Lotos Geonafta - and the US energy company Chevron have shown interest in the production of shale gas and other hydrocarbonates in Lithuania.
According to unconfirmed data, Lithuania's recoverable shale gas reserves could reach 100 billion to 120 billion cubic meters, an amount that Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius has said would be sufficient to meet the country's natural gas needs for some 30 to 40 years.
