80312 - Transcription of Podcast#110: Zeus-1

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athina Kehagias

This Podcast is dedicated to the discovery of the Zeus-1 reserve. This is a new success of the Eni-Total Energean consortium. It is important, because it is taking place within marine block 6, where in August, as you may well remember, the discovery of the Kronos-1 reserve occurred, which followed the 2018 discovery that took place within the Calypso reserve. Now, because we have the official announcement, we know that the Tungsten Explorer drilling rig is at a distance of 162 kilometers from the coast of Cyprus and this is important to know, that 5 kilometers west of the Kronos-1 drilling, that is very close, at a water depth of 2300 meters, it managed to locate an 105 meter column of natural gas. That means that we are close to 3 trillion cubic feet. It is a reserve which as it seems, is a little larger than the Kronos-1 reserve and of course it comes to enhance the total of the reserves, which started with the Aphrodite reserve in 2011, then we had the Calypso reserve in 2018, the Glaukos reserve in 2019 and now, in 2022, two more reserves. This therefore proves that the Cypriot EEZ is a wealth for Cyprus, for Hellenism, for the European Union. It’s something that needs to be given prominence to. It is also a vindication for those who believed from the beginning, like Kassinis, how important the Cypriot EEZ is, the issue of the establishment, the issue of the delimitations and how that may change the geopolitics of Cyprus. We understand that all these will also enhance the East Med pipeline matter. We will no longer have people telling us that we don’t have enough reserves. We can play in a dynamic and proven manner. We know that we are talking about reserves that obtain a commercial value. This means that the connection in existence between Cyprus and the consortium is stronger than ever, since they have located three reserves within this contract, all of which within marine block 6, and of course we also had marine block 12 for Aphrodite and marine block 10 for Glaucus. We can therefore say that the energean chessboard of Cyprus is growing larger. The interest of the European Union in Cyprus is also growing, especially during this period, that it is searching for sources of energy, and we can state briefly, that it is an enormous success or should I say a feat, because if we think about the delays we had faced due to the pandemic as well, it is very gratifying that just before Christmas we also have this very good news which come to support practically the strategy initiated by Cyprus and constitutes a model for Greece as well.