Cyprus says Eni, Total find ‘extensive strain’ of offshore gas

ATHENS: A consortium of Italy’s Eni and France’s Total has discovered an extensive strain of natural gas southwest of Cyprus, Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis said on Thursday.
“An extensive column of clean natural gas was discovered in various geographical formations,” Lakkotrypis told journalists.
Further analysis of data compiled from the Calypso well will be required to assess the quantity but the geology is similar to that of Egypt’s mammoth Zohr offshore field, he said.
“This is a particularly positive development because it is the second substantive discovery in the Cypriot EEZ (exclusive economic zone), which increases the reserves of Cyprus in natural gas,” Lakkotrypis said.
Calypso lies in block 6 of Cyprus’s offshore EEZ about 80 km from Zohr.
Discovered by Eni in 2015, Zohr contains an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas and is the largest gas find in the Mediterranean.
Cyprus made its first offshore discovery in 2011 with the Aphrodite field, which lies southeast of Cyprus and is thought to contain around 5 tcf of gas.