Cyprus, Total renew agreement for hydrocarbons exploration

Cyprus and French energy company Total renewed an agreement for hydrocarbons exploration in the eastern Mediterranean island's offshore exclusive economic zone, Cypriot Energy and Industry Minister, Yiorgos Lakkotrypis said on Wednesday.

Lakkotrypis said Total would further assess the possibility of further actual drilling for hydrocarbons.

Total failed in its first drilling attempt and announced in January that it had not been not able to locate drilling target areas within Cypriot blocks 10 and 11 where it had been licensed to explore.

The French energy giant said it was discussing with local authorities a potential program of additional exploration works in the area.

U.S.-based Noble Energy said on Monday it was going to submit within weeks its development plan for a well in a neighboring block believed to contain an average of 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Noble Energy said it would declare its discovery commercially exploitable and would prepare the necessary documentation on the terms of selling gas by the end of this year.

Cyprus is currently engaged in talks with Egypt to explore ways of piping natural gas to two liquefaction sites. Endit