Hydrocarbons Company CEO Charles Ellinas told New Europe on May 31 the deal reached between Cyprus’ government and the Aphrodite gas field stakeholders to modify the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) means that Cyprus will be able to monetise Aphrodite. He stressed that in fact this one of the requirements of the deal.
The Cypriot government expects Noble Energy and its partners to expedite development. “It is expected that soon after the modified PSC is signed it will be followed by a gas sales agreement with Shell taking the gas by subsea pipeline to Egypt for liquefaction at the Idku LNG plant,” Ellinas said, referring to the Egyptian liquefied natural gas plant on the Mediterranean coast.
“However, this deal means altering profit sharing in favour of Noble Energy and its partners, leaving Cyprus with much reduced profits. The other drawback is that this will leave insufficient gas to support development of an LNG plant on the island for now,” Ellinas said, arguing that as a result, Glafcos and Calypso will have to wait until more discoveries are made. “Additional drilling, up to 8 wells, is planned to be carried out over the next 2 years. Hopefully this will lead to new discoveries bring plans for the development of an LNG plant at Vasilikos back to the table,” he said.
Full article available: https://www.neweurope.eu/article/cyprus-noble-energy-reach-deal-to-expedite-aphrodite-development/