A3 confirmation drilling completed last week
A3 confirmation drilling in the Aphrodite field was completed last week, Energy Minister Giorgos Papanastasiou said on Monday, noting that it looks like there will be positive news .
Answering questions from journalists, in the framework of an event of the Green Energy Group, in Nicosia, Mr. Papanastasiou said that the drilling was completed on July 13 and there are some initial placements but unofficial.
“The drilling has been completed successfully, the driller has gone to the site which confirms the quantities, there may be something newer after that which will be evaluated for the quality of the natural gas, but it seems that our news is positive,” he said.< /p>
He noted that this is a drilling that was done in the center of the field, after two previous drillings that were done, one to the east and the other to the west. “For the first time, drilling was attempted in the center of the field to confirm the quantities and quality of natural gas that we actually expected,” he added.
Regarding the drilling, he said that while it is confirmatory, it is at a depth which, with little intervention, can also be considered a development drilling of the field. Responding to a clarifying question, Mr. Papanastasiou said that the revised mining plan for the field talks about the beginning of 2028, but, “it can easily be 2027, so, you understand, it is good from a technical point of view to know that there is specific drilling which if intervention can be done drilling for development”.
Asked about it, he said that the results of the drilling itself are expected by the end of August, while at the same time they are considering, by the end of August, to send a response to the managing company, Chevron, for the revised development plan, which it sent about a month and a half ago. “We have until the end of August to give our comments on this plan, so these two events, the completion of the drilling, but also the fact that a plan has been submitted for the development of the field, will be something that the Ministry will decide, and will inform the specific company”, said Mr. Papanastasiou.
Asked about the cooperation of the Republic of Cyprus with Egypt and Israel, the Minister said that the names that will take part in the two technical committees were agreed upon yesterday. He reminded that there are the two committees that were agreed between the Ministers of Energy about a month ago – natural gas and hydrogen and the other one for the electrical interconnection of the two countries (Cyprus and Israel) – and which will start work around the end of this month . The possibility is that there will be announcements about this in the Tripartite on July 26, he said, and when asked about it, he said that the goals have been agreed, which should be carried out in a specific time frame.
Asked to say if there are any developments regarding other deposits within the Cypriot EEZ, Mr. Papanastasiou noted that there are deposits which are located a little further south of the economic zone of Cyprus, and of which, the fastest, possible to be “Saturn”, which basically, as he mentioned, is under the management company, ENI, while TOTAL is also in the same field, and it's being exploited right now, so that there's some kind of rapid development so that it can to generate income, first for the company, to repay the expenses it has incurred, but later for the Republic of Cyprus.
