In the so-called Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus has discovered a new field of natural gas, informed the Cypriot energy ministry. The seams contain almost 80 billion cubic meters of this hydrocarbon.
The ministry said in a press release that the discovery was made by the Italian-French consortium Eni-Total, and the field was located thanks to the Cronos-1 well drilled 160 km from the coast of Cyprus, in the so-called the country’s exclusive economic zone (this is a sea area extending 200 miles inland from the baseline; within the EEZ, coastal states have the exclusive right to exploit and manage living resources).
This is the second gas field discovered in these areas by Eni-Total. Previous, named Calypso, was discovered in 2018but up to this resistance, it is not known exactly how much gas is there.
A new discovery “may unlock additional potential in this area and is part of the company’s successful efforts to ensure continued gas supplies to Europe, “Eni wrote in a statement.
The Cypriot Ministry of Energy has announced that the Eni-Total Tungsten Explorer drill vessel has been moved to a new well to “assess gas resources with greater precision“.
The Cypriot government emphasized in its announcement that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave an additional impetus to the search for alternative fuel sourcesespecially after the European Union reaffirmed that natural gas can act as a bridge fuel by 2050 in the EU’s transition to cleaner energy.
Department chief Natasa Pilides said that the most likely scenario for the supply of Cypriot gas to European markets is to transport it via a pipeline to Egyptian liquefaction plantsand then shipped.
In total, the waters of Cyprus have already been located four natural gas fields. Earlier, they made a similar discovery ExxonMobil with Qatar Petroleum (the field is estimated at 141 – 226 billion m3) and Chevron with Schell and the Israeli company NewMed Energy (about 115 billion m3).