Full speed ahead for Cyprus drilling
The new Minister of Commerce and Industry Praxoula Antoniadou has met with representatives of the Noble Energy on the exploration for natural gas on “Cyprus Plot Twelve”.
CAROL AMENT / FG ONLINE
The new Minister of Commerce and Industry Praxoula Antoniadou has met with representatives of the Noble Energy on the exploration for natural gas on “Cyprus Plot Twelve”.
Mrs. Antoniadou said that during the meeting various developments and the next steps were discussed adding the Cyprus will go with its plans for the start of exploration drilling at the beginning of October.
She added: “If Turkey truly looks forward to a peaceful future for the countries of the region with cooperation for the mutual benefit and is genuinely interested in her accession course, the best thing she can do is to contribute to the Cyprus talks on the basis of the bizonal, bicommunal federation.
"In this way we can all move forward in conditions of peaceful cooperation. At this moment only Cyprus can help Turkey continue her accession course and the best way for Ankara is to allow the successful conclusion of the Cyprus talks."
Turkey has threatened to take unspecified action if the drilling goes ahead pending a solution to the Cyprus problem, but the Foreign Minister Erato Marcoullis says Cyprus launched its exploration plans in line with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and that it would go ahead with those plans.
“Cyprus is taking Turkey’s threats seriously and is doing everything possible to find a solution”, she said.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet reported earlier this week that Ankara was rebuffed by Washington after urging the US administration to postpone the date of natural gas exploration activities off the coast of Cyprus by US firm Noble Energy.
Despite the threats, the Director of the Cyprus Energy Services Solon Kassinis insisted that all steps had been taken in accordance with international law and that nothing would deter the go ahead this autumn.
“We are proceeding according to our sort of agreement with Nobel and the rig is going to start working about the first of October, because you know it now is drilling in Israel. They are going to start drilling to see what is happening underneath and see what exists down there,” he told state radio.
The government signed a production-sharing contract with ‘Noble Energy’ to launch exploration activities in an 800,000-acre economic zone southeast of the island which borders Israeli waters and where massive gas fields have been found under the seabed.
 — Copyright © Famagusta Gazette 2011

 
 
 


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