Only a year ago, S. Casinis presented at the Athens Mare Forum, the location of the Zohr type Cypriot target reserve.
This target – mapped with exceptional accuracy through three-dimensional seismics – is situated at a distance, merely 6 kilometers (km) away from the discovered Egyptian Zohr(see Figure 1).

The above-mentioned target, which was studied in depth by the writers of this article, obtains great similarities with the discovered Zohr reserve, and is considered – following EM direct prospecting evaluations – that it has a good chance of containing significant quantities of biogenic natural gas.
S. Cassinis was under the impression that Total’s first drilling would be carried out upon this target, but there are important reasons which altered Total’s decision, in order to adduce West Capella at the Onisiforos Reserve, which is much closer to the borders of marine block 10 of the Cypriot EEZ.
In the next figure (Fig. 2), we observe that the Norwegian geophysical company PGS has mapped the target reserve Onisiforos, which is at least 40km away from the Zohr reserve. Following the analisis of these data we can see that:

The surface plan of the Onísiforos target reserve, constitutes about 60% of the corresponding surface plan of the Zohr reserve, quite contrary to S.Cassinis’s target, which appears to be 40% of the Zohr surface.
Given that the altitudinal useful inclusiveness in the Zohr reserve is in the range of 460 meters (m), the degree of hydrocarbon inclusiveness of the other target reserves of marine blocks, 10 and 11, constitute the main decision factor regarding any future drilling in another location.
We should note here, that according to our previous estimates, we had indicated that the target mapped by S. Cassinis, has the potential of containing biogenic gas which exceeds the 90%, whereas the useful altitude of natural gas inclusiveness doesn’t altitudinally exceed the 120m.
Total’s choice to firstly drill upon a target reserve, so far located from Zohr, derives from this company’s internal estimates, which in actual fact indicate that the degree of inclusiveness of the Onisiforos structure is likely to be more satisfactory than the corresponding target suggested by S. Cassinis.
Simultaneously, the proximity of Onísiforos to the targets of marine block 10, is expected to significantly enhance the prospects of new neighbouring discoveries by the ExxonMobil-Qatar Petroleum Consortium, as well as the prospects of cooperation re: reserves in the region.
We should add here, that if Onisiforos finally contains natural gas with inclusiveness capacity equal to the Zohr reserve, it could contain hydrocarbon resources of the order of 18 Trillion cubic feet (Tcf), or 500 Billion cubic meters of natural gas, ie approximately the quantity which represents the current needs of Greece for 125 years.