TotalEnergies – ENI: Large natural gas field off the coast of Cyprus

A major gas discovery in the Cronos-1 field, block 6 offshore Cyprus has been announced by energy companies TotalEnergies and ENI.

According to ENI’s official announcement, preliminary estimates in the Cronos-1 field of block 6 indicate the existence of 2.5 tcf of natural gas.

For its part, TotalEnergies highlights that the field located at approximately 160 km southwest of the Cyprus coast, Cronos-1 encountered several good quality carbonate reservoir intervals and confirmed overall net gas pay of more than 260 meters.

“Strategic Exploration”

“This successful exploration well at Cronos-1 is another illustration of the impact of our Exploration strategy which is focused on discovering resources with low technical cost and low carbon emissions, to contribute to energy security including to provide an additional sources of gas supply to Europe” said Kevin McLachlan, Senior Vice President, Exploration at TotalEnergies.

The Cronos-1 deposit is the fourth target operated by ENI and the second in block 6. The company operates blocks 2, 3, 6, 8, and 9 and has interests in blocks 7 and 11 operated by Total.

The announcement of the Ministry

The Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry announces that the work of the “Cronos-1” exploratory well has been successfully and safely completed, within Block 6 of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Republic of Cyprus, by the joint venture of Eni Cyprus Limited and TotalEnergies EP Cyprus B.V.

The drilling, which was carried out by the drillship “Tungsten Explorer” in a water depth of 2,287 meters, demonstrated the existence of a column of pure natural gas of 260 meters. Based on the extensive analysis of the resulting data, the reservoir that was discovered has characteristics of good to excellent quality and has, according to preliminary estimates, a total amount of natural gas of 2.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf).

With the consortium and the Ministry of Energy already working on ways to accelerate and make the best use of this new discovery in the Cyprus EEZ, including contributing to Europe’s efforts to strengthen its energy security, the “Tungsten Explorer” has now moved on to the target “Zeus-1”, for a new exploration well in Block 6 in order to more accurately estimate the quantities of natural gas in said Block.

Data so far

The relevant information about a large natural gas deposit in “plot 6” of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Republic of Cyprus was leaked to the Cypriot media at the beginning of the month.

The same information stated that there are also indications of the existence of a second column of natural gas, next to the location of the field.

Plot 10

It is recalled that last March, the work of the “Glaucus-2” appraisal well was successfully and safely completed, in Block 10 of the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Republic of Cyprus.

The drilling operations, which also included production tests, were conducted by the ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Cyprus (Offshore) Limited / Qatar Petroleum International Upstream LLC joint venture, which holds a Hydrocarbon Exploration License for the Block in question.

The drilling demonstrated the presence of a natural gas reservoir with high quality characteristics. The consortium will proceed with a detailed analysis and evaluation of the data they have collected, to more accurately determine the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the reservoir, but also the potential options for development and commercialization of the discovery.