NICOSIA: US firm Noble Energy said yesterday that it has started drilling off the southern shores of Cyprus to assess if there is enough untapped gas to launch a commercially viable venture.
“It is estimated that drilling the well will take approximately three months to reach a total depth of about 5,600 metres (18,500 feet) below sea level. Water depth at the well is about 1,700 metres,” Noble said in a statement.
“Drilling results from the A-2 well will help Noble Energy confirm the estimated resource size and provide information required to initiate planning of subsequent stages of development,” it added.
Based on the results of initial test drilling in 2011, the estimated resource size for the natural gas discovery in Block 12 is 5 trillion cubic feet to 8 tcf, with a mean of 7 tcf, said the Houston-based company.
Following completion of the latest drilling, assessment of the data is expected to take 60 to 90 days. Israeli firms Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration each own 15 percent of the US project.
The almost bankrupt Mediterranean island is hoping its untapped offshore energy resources can pull it back from the financial brink. Cyprus is hoping to commercially export its gas, and maybe oil riches, by 2020.
The eastern Mediterranean has been a hive of exploratory activity, with the government granting permits to international prospectors after Israel discovered massive offshore gas deposits in 2010.
Noble Energy made the first find off Cyprus’s southeast coast in 2011 near the Israeli maritime boundary, in a test well named Aphrodite-1 after the island’s mythological goddess of love. The discovery was seen as a potential saviour from the financial ills which have plagued the small island nation.
The government hopes its gas deposits will help it climb out of recession and quickly recover from the harshness of an EU bailout deal which has clobbered its banking sector.
The government has played up the potential of the gas windfall estimating it at 60 tcf, but this overall figure has to be verified through exploration. It will also take several years for revenue to be generated.
Earlier this year, Cyprus signed additional agreements with French energy giant Total and a consortium between ENI of Italy and South Korea’s Kogas for oil and gas exploration in its waters.
Even if Cyprus emerges from its current economic crisis, the island continues to be divided politically. Turkey, which invaded the north in 1974 in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then ruling Greece, has reacted angrily to the Greek Cypriot-led internationally recognised government’s search for energy. AFP
