Filenews 8 July 2025
The good news about the identification of a new natural gas field in the Cypriot EEZ, in Block 10 and the Peasos 1 target, was not accompanied by equally good news about the quantities in which Cypriot citizens can expect.
ExxonMobil, contrary to what it announced when it located the Glafkos field (5-8 tcf), yesterday chose, possibly due to difficulty in evaluating the existing geological data, not to make any estimate of the volume of the deposit, reserving the right for new assessments of the result, possibly for a confirmatory drilling at a later stage.
Yesterday's written statement by Government Spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis on the teleconference of the President of the Republic with the Vice President of ExxonMobil was only enlightening.
According to Mr. Letymbiotis, "the "Pegasus-1" borehole, which was safely drilled by the floating drilling rig "Valaris DS-9" at a distance of about 190 kilometers southwest of the coast of Cyprus and a water depth of 1,921 meters, demonstrated the existence of a 350-meter column of clean natural gas.
There was no reference to either trillions of cubic feet, nor to billions of cubic meters, unlike other drilling in the Cypriot EEZ in previous years. It is only mentioned that "in order to evaluate the data that emerged, further analysis will be carried out in the coming months".
According to estimates by technocrats, the reference to a column of clean natural gas (without special quantities of water or oil) of 350 meters high is a good to very good indication, but it is not enough in itself to give reliable indications of the amount of natural gas in Pegasus 1.
As we have been pointed out, in order to be able to make safer estimates, information should be provided on the extent of the field, i.e. on all its dimensions and not only on the height of the natural gas column. It is from the area - e.g. the square meters occupied by the deposit - that a prediction can be made for the volume of the deposit and the quantities that can be exploited, and not only from the height of the column.
It should be noted, however, that from the data of previous drilling in the Cypriot EEZ, it can be concluded that the height of the natural gas column in Pegasus is the highest or one of the highest detected so far (most of the others were below 140 meters).
The President's statement
The new discovery of natural gas in the Cypriot exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in Pegasus-1 in Plot 10 confirms the energy potential of Cyprus, the President of the Republic, Nikos Christodoulides, says in a post after a teleconference he had on Monday afternoon with ExxonMobil executives.
In his post, President Christodoulides says that the new discovery of natural gas in the Cypriot EEZ at Pegasus-1 in Plot 10 "confirms the energy potential of Cyprus".
"We will continue to promote our energy plans, consistently and with the aim of exploiting our natural resources for the benefit of our people, our region and the EU," President Christodoulides concluded.
