EMGC '18: Eni Chief sees rapid development of Eastern Med gas with Zohr - WORLD OIL / HYDROCARBON PROCESSING

Yiorgos Lakkotrypis, Minister of Energy, Commerce,
Industry and Tourism of the Republic of Cyprus

March/21/2018

Adrienne Blume

NICOSIA -- Opening Day 1 of Gulf Publishing Company's fifth annual Eastern Mediterranean Gas Conference (EMGC) on March 21 was Yiorgos Lakkotrypis, Minister of Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism for the Republic of Cyprus.

The Minister welcomed attendees and shared perspectives on energy development in Cyprus and throughout the region. Lakkotrypis' talk was followed by a keynote presentation from Luca Bertelli, CEO at Italy's Eni.

Ministerial welcome and energy analysis. Lakkotrypis called Eni's Calypso discovery offshore Cyprus a "promising discovery," and said he looks forward to hearing from Eni about the future of that activity. The strategy of the Cyprus government, the Minister said, focuses on ongoing discoveries of natural gas, as well as those resources that will be discovered after the first cycle of exploration is concluded at the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019.

"It will give us a good idea of what kinds of resources we have in Cyprus," the Minister said. He added that the Zohr-like play discovered in Cyprus' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) promises the discovery of additional, important resources.

"As we are fulfilling our strategy," Lakkotrypis said, "I would like to focus on one thing: the development of the Aphrodite discovery." Cyprus has been in talks with Egyptian partners for the sale of gas for export as LNG. Lakkotrypis noted that Cyprus has recently submitted an official agreement to the EU government for the regulation of a pipeline between Cyprus and Egypt. A decision is expected to be reached in a few weeks.

Eni official: East Mediterranean gas could supply Europe - THE SEATTLE TIMES / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 21, 2018 at 4:06 am
Menelaos Hadjicostis

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — The East Mediterranean could become a hub to export gas to Europe — and the fastest and cheapest way to do that is to utilize idle processing plants in Egypt, a senior executive with Italian energy company Eni said Wednesday.

Eni’s Chief Exploration Officer Luca Bertelli told a gas conference in Cyprus that his company’s recent discovery of a gas field southeast of Cyprus that contains “almost pure methane” has confirmed that there’s potential for more gas discoveries in the region.

He said the Italian company plans to search for more gas off Cyprus in two other areas where it’s licensed to carry out exploratory drilling.

He added that the simplest way to process the gas for export — especially to the regional big markets, Greece and Turkey — is utilizing underused processing plants in Egypt to liquefy the mineral for transport.

Eni bets big on Zohr explorer finding new treasure - REUTERS

Eni's Chief Exploration Officer Luca Bertelli poses at the headquarters in San Donato near Milan, Italy, September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Alberto Lingria

OCTOBER 6, 2017 / 12:12 PM
Stephen Jewkes

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian oil major Eni (ENI.MI) is betting billions on Luca Bertelli being able to achieve something he’s been doing since he was nine years old: spotting things others overlook.

The geologist, who heads Eni’s exploration team, began collecting rocks as a boy growing up in Tuscany, developing a curious eye that eventually led him to discover two of the world’s biggest gas fields this century.

His latest success, the Zohr field off Egypt, sits in an area that Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) pored over for years before Bertelli persuaded his boss to embark on a drilling program that turned up the Mediterranean’s largest gas discovery.

The real prospects of East Med Gas - IN CYPRUS / CYPRUS WEEKLY

March 19, 2017
Charles Ellinas

This was the subject of a very successful conference – EMGC 2017 – held in Nicosia over March 14-15 and attended by leading experts and delegates from 25 countries.

The conference was organised by Gulf-Publishing Company Houston. Its focus was the East Med gas industry and its development, concentrating on markets, project development, gas monetisation, investment and gas trading, avoiding local politics. In other words the conference covered all the key issues that affect the future development of East Med gas resources. I examine and analyse these in this article.

EMGC '17: Eni chief shares invigorating projections for Eastern Med gas - WORLD OIL / HYDROCARBON PROCESSING

Luca Bertelli, CEO of Italy's Eni SpA (photo by Adrienne Blume)

March/14/2017
Adrienne Blume

NICOSIA -- Gulf Publishing Company's Eastern Mediterranean Gas Conference (EMGC) 2017, the fourth incarnation of the world's primary event for discussing the forces shaping gas industry development in the Eastern Mediterranean, opened on March 14.

Luca Bertelli, Chief Exploration Officer of Italy's Eni SpA, opened EMGC 2017 with a keynote address on key gas exploration and development activities in the region, particularly Eni's massive Zohr field in Egypt.

A decade of discovery. "We call the Eastern Mediterranean the 'sea of gas'," Mr. Bertelli said. Eni has been discovering gas in the region for 50 years, starting in the Nile Delta and Egypt's shallow waters. The Italian company partnered with Britain’s BP for exploration activities in the early 1980s.

Energy giant ENI believes there could be another Zohr field in the region - CYPRUS MAIL

March 14, 2017

A second super-giant gas field like Zohr could be awaiting discovery in the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps off the coast of Cyprus, Italian energy giant ENI said on Tuesday.

“We believe there could be another Zohr in the region. We hope so,” said Luca Bertelli, ENI’s Chief Exploration Officer, speaking at the fourth Eastern Mediterranean Gas Conference in Nicosia.

ENI discovered the Zohr prospect, in Egypt’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in 2015. The field holds an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas in place, and is the largest ever natural gas find in the Mediterranean surpassing Israel’s Leviathan.

ENI had taken a gamble, using a geological sequencing model tracking carbonate reservoirs rather than the classical sand-reservoir model.