On February 8, 2018, Cyprus announced that the Italian “Eni” and the French “Total”, have discovered a large gas reservoir in Cypriot territorial waters in the Mediterranean,
The Cyprus Energy Minister, “George Lakotripis,” declared in a press statement that: “Data from the exploration work at a depth of 3827 meters revealed the existence of a huge vertical reservoir of pure gas”.
The minister described the gas reserves as of “excellent quality”, as the rock structure of the discovery area suggests.
“It is a very positive development because it proves that our reserves of natural gas are increasing and confirms the existence of an oil network along with a carbon well,” he added.
He also referred to the discovered field as “similar to that of Dhohre field in Egypt.”
In December, “ENI” and “Total” began joint exploration work in Sector 6 called Calypso.
The exploration in the Cypriot coast began seven years ago, but it did not detect gas volumes sufficient to achieve the commercial feasibility.
However, the discovery of a huge reservoir of gas in the Egyptian field of “Dhohre” in 2015, has revived hope that new resources can be extracted from Cypriot waters. The latter has signed an agreement with “ExxonMobil” to explore a field adjacent to Dhohre field.
Worth mentioning that, “Noble Energy” was the first to discover gas off the coast of Cyprus in 2011 in a field whose reserves were estimated at 127.4 billion cubic meters of gas, but the extraction did not begin in this field despite it achieving the commercial feasibility.
