Cyprus, energy consortium to push full ahead with natural gas development

Cyprus and an energy consortium have decided to push full ahead with developing a natural gas field off the south shores of the island, government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said on Saturday.

"The government has made its final comments on the development plan and talks on the modalities and final detail of the project will start in earnest," Christodoulides said.

Texas based Noble Energy and Israel's Delek Drilling and Avner energy companies have been licensed by Cyprus to drill in block 12 of its offshore exclusive economic zone and develop any hydrocarbon finds.

Noble Energy tapped a field in 2011 drilling called Aphrodite which contains an estimated 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Cyprus' Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis met a delegation of the consortium on Friday to discuss the government's final comments on a development plan submitted in June.

"Both sides are eager to proceed ahead with Aprhodites' development," a source close to the meeting said.

He added that the construction of needed infrastructure will start soon to materialize the plan.

This will possibly involve a pipe to the southern shores of Cyprus and also another pipe to existing Egyptian infrastructure.

Delek Drilling's CEO Yossi Abu earlier met with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and declared that the consortium is committed to developing the Aphrodite field "in line with its strategy of supplying the Cypriot and Egyptian markets with natural gas in the fastest and most efficient way."

"We have already started the process of marketing the gas into those markets and we have long discussions with potential buyers," Abu said.

The plans to develop Aphrodite seem to be unaffected by Egypt's mammoth gas Zohr find in drilling conducted by Italy's ENI company.

ENI said the field contains 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it the biggest offshore find in the Mediterranean and one of the biggest in the world.

Both Delek Drilling and Cyprus have said negotiations with the British BG company handling Egypt's liquefaction terminal at Idku are going ahead.

"President Anastasiades has talked with Egypt's President Fattah al-Sisi and they agreed that the Zohr find will not in any way affect negotiations for piping gas from Aphrodite to Idku," Christodoulides told state radio.

Cyprus and the Aphrodite consortium have said they consider the Egyptian discovery as it has heightened the attention on eastern Mediterranean gas.

Abu said a reappraisal of the situation is being done but he added that "we see a potential in the local market of Egypt for more demand for natural gas."

The Zohr gas drilling was carried out only six km from block 11 of Cyprus' continental shelf and the field covers 100 square kilometers, a fact which may raise issues of joint exploitation under an existing agreement with Egypt.