Maniatis will take part in a tripartite working meeting, on August 7 and 8, in Nicosia between the three countries to further enhance regional cooperation in Southeastern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean. Cyprus’ Minister of Energy, Industry, Commerce and Tourism Yiorgos Lakkotrypis and Israeli Minister of Energy and Water Resources Silvan Shalom will also take part in the meeting. The three ministers are expected to issue a joint declaration expressing their support to the “EuroAsia Interconnector” project, which connects the electrical systems of the three countries via a subsea cable, according to a press release issued in Greece. Recently the project was included in EU projects of common interest.

During his visit, Maniatis will have bilateral talks with his Cypriot counterparts Lakkotrypis and Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment Nikos Kouyialis during which they will exchange points of view on current developments as regards natural gas exploration in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Cyprus and Greece. In 2011 Noble announced that exploratory drilling in block 12`s A-1 well revealed an estimated resource of 5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) to 8 tcf, with a mean of 7 tcf. Noble Energy operates Block 12 with a 70 percent working interest.

Delek Drilling Limited Partnership and Avner Oil Exploration Limited Partnership each own 15 percent. Apart from Noble Energy, Cyprus has also signed contracts with the ENI/KOGAS consortium for hydrocarbons exploration in blocks 2, 3 and 9, as well as with French TOTAL for blocks 10 and 11 in its Exclusive Economic Zone. On June 26, Cyprus government, Delek and Avner signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or the Cyprus LNG terminal.

Source: Financial Mirror