Energy Minister George Papanastasiou on Friday expressed his hope that American multinational oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil’s decision to begin drilling for natural gas in block 5 of Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) will “open new horizons”.
Speaking after a meeting attended by ExxonMobil vice president for global exploration John Ardill, President Nikos Christodoulides, and himself, he said that the corporation’s decision to drill in block 5, which contains a potential natural gas reservoir named ‘Electra’, constitutes a “milestone”.
“Depending on the findings … the company will decide how to commercialise this particular deposit, and we hope that the deposit will be something which will open horizons different from the usual ones,” he said.
Asked to clarify, he said, “depending on the findings after the drilling, you understand that if the quantities are satisfactory, the whole picture changes, and if that picture changes, it means that something can be developed.”
On this matter, Ardill said he had informed Christodoulides about plans to drill both in block 5 and in block 10, which contains the ‘Glaucus’ natural gas deposit, with the hope of finding new natural gas resources which will “support the rapid development of both onshore and domestic gas supply, and, potentially, for liquefied natural gas (LNG).”
He added that the process of exploiting the resources will be taken step by step, saying, “the first steps are to understand what the resources are and then, once we know that, around mid-2025, we will be in a good position to consider different development options.”
Papanastasiou added that a prospect named ‘Pegasus’, which is located close to the Glaucus deposit in block 10, will be connected to Glaucus if drilling into the area finds sufficient deposits.
This, he said, will be done so that the infrastructure for both deposits can be developed in parallel.
He added that ExxonMobil are already “in consultation” with Italian energy company Eni, with the aim of incorporating the ‘Kronos’ reservoir, which is located in block 6, into a combined development.
Friday’s meeting comes after Ardill had confirmed his company would begin drilling off the coast of Cyprus in January.
“We’ve spent the last two years collecting very detailed, three-dimensional seismic data…We’ve identified several large prospects, and the next stage is to bring in a drilling rig and to test those,” he said, adding, “we’ll spud our first well in mid-January, so we are very excited about that.”
He said a drillship was en route from Western Africa to the Eastern Mediterranean. The ship will arrive off the coast of Egypt halfway through December, before travelling towards Cyprus a month later.
Earlier this month, Papanastasiou had informed the House finance committee about progress regarding these and other blocks in Cyprus’ EEZ.
On the matter of the ‘Aphrodite’ deposit in block 12, which is under the management of American corporation Chevron, he said the revised plan for the deposit submitted by Chevron in September is now being “discussed at a technocratic level”.
The new plan, he said, would see the gas extracted from the ‘Aphrodite’ deposit connected to a floating production unit (FPU) directly above it in Cypriot waters, which would then be connected to liquefaction infrastructure in Egypt, instead of creating new such infrastructure in Cyprus.
To this end, he said it is his ministry’s goal to “conclude these discussions by the end of January 2025 so that the next milestone in this project is not lost”.
