George Psyllides
ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum plan on drilling for gas in an offshore block towards the end of the year, Energy Minister Natasa Pilidou has said.
In an interview with daily Politis, the minister said the two companies planned on drilling an appraisal well in block 10 where natural gas was discovered towards the end of November or early December.
“The experts who will take part in the appraisal drill at the Glaucus [Glafcos] well are already in our country and we are in constant contact with the company concerning the procedures that will be followed, both as regards measures against the pandemic, and the plan, the budget, timeframes, etc,” Pilidou said.
Based on preliminary interpretation of the well data, the discovery could represent an in-place natural gas resource of approximately 142 billion to 227bn cubic metres, the company said in 2019.
Glaucus-1 was the second of a two-well drilling programme in block 10. The first well, Delphyne-1, did not encounter commercial quantities of hydrocarbons.
Block 10 is 2,572 square kilometres and ExxonMobil holds 60 per cent interest with Qatar Petroleum owning 40 per cent.
Pilidou said the government also expected ENI-Total to start drilling early in 2022.
France’s Total and Italy’s ENI are the biggest players in Cyprus’ energy search, holding exploration licences for seven of the 13 blocks.
Korea’s Kogas is also a partner in three of those concessions.
ENI-Total had notified the government last year that they were postponing their scheduled gas drilling operations for around a year because of the Covid pandemic.
Eni and Total had been scheduled to start drilling in block 6 and two other blocks.
In February 2018, the companies announced a gas discovery in the Calypso 1 well located in block 6 which was described as “a promising discovery and detailed sampling on fluids and rocks has confirmed that the Zohr (Egypt) play extends into the exclusive economic waters of Cyprus”.
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