While we had heard from various “experts” of servility, that Total feared the Turkish acts of harassment, and as a result they were about to depart from marine plots 10 and 11, now the reality comes to confirm our estimates, as the renewal of Total’s contract with the Republic of Cyprus for another two years just occurred, following the three year previous one, and that, at a cost to the company because they ought to return the 25% of the area of the marine plot, as they exceeded the time limit without a drilling program. A factor which is practically proving, that Total is really interested in the region much to Turkey’s dismay.
Therefore, with the new data we have the official announcement that the drilling is about to take place in the marine plot 11 within 2016 .
That not only doesn’t surprise us, but it was quite predictable, because of the relatively short distance that exists from the Zohr reserve.
In actual fact, it is quite possible that the drilling specifically regards this context, but also quite possibly on the edge of the underwater mountain Eratosthenes.
In any case, these new data come to enhance the Cypriot positions, and to overturn all those who were telling us that there’s no foreign specialists interest, because the marine plots of the Cypriot EEZ haven’t such a value.
Now with with both this renewal, but also BG Group’s purchase of the 35% of Noble’s share re: marine plot 12, we can all perceive that the truth is different, and that additionally there are new target reserves with a different morphology similar to that of the Zohr reserve.