The future tests will provide more precise information on the potential fossil fuels, says ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil.

"This is encouraging but still too early in the process of exploration and evaluation of data to speculate if they are going to be tradeable or not," reads the release.

The Domino-1 well is located in Neptune block, 170 km off the shore, in waters 1,000 metres deep and is drilled with state-of-the-art technology. The drilling began late in 2011 and are still ongoing. It is estimated that the total depth of the well will be more than 3,000 metres below the sea level.

The Neptune perimeter stretches over about 9,900 square kilometers in waters ranging between 50 and 1,700 metres deep. ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited and Petrom signed an agreement in November 2008 by which ExxonMobil purchased 50 percent of the deepwater area of the Neptune perimeter. Since that moment, the two companies worked closely to purchase 3D seismic data and to evaluate the fossil fuel potential in this particular perimeter.

Between 2009 and 2010, Petrom and ExxonMobil purchased data for over 3,000 square kilometres within the Neptune perimeter with the aid of the state-of-the-art 3D seismic data, within the largest seismic programme ever held in Romania.AGERPRES