Yiorgos Lakkotrypis

The arrival in Cyprus of senior US energy official Francis Fannon sends "political messages," Cypriot government spokesman Kyriakos Kousios said on Tuesday, noting that a new round of drilling in the Cyprus EEZ is expected end of March.

Greece, Israel and Cyprus have signed a deal for an undersea pipeline designed to carry gas from offshore deposits in the southeastern Mediterranean to continental Europe.
The deal was signed during a ceremony at Zappeion Hall by the three countries' energy ministers, Costis Hatzidakis, Yiorgos Lakkotrypis and Yuval Steinitz.

The intergovernmental agreement on the Eastern Mediterranean natural gas pipeline that will be signed by Greece, Cyprus and Israel in Athens on Thursday contains provisions on measures to protect the pipeline, government sources said.

Cyprus signed a 25-year concession on Thursday with a three-member consortium for the exploitation of a gas reservoir southeast of the island first discovered in 2011.

Greece, Israel, Cyprus and the United States agreed to enhance cooperation in energy, cyber and infrastructure security, Greek Energy Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said on Wednesday after ministers of the four countries met in Athens.

With Nicosia seeking to consolidate its sovereign rights in view of Turkey's stance in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis announced on Tuesday that the country will conduct eight drillings, six exploratory and two confirmatory, in specific areas of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) over the next 24 months, without revealing exactly where.

Cyprus will proceed with eight drillings for hydrocarbons in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) over the next 24 months, the country's Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis announced on Tuesday.

The announcement on Thursday that US energy giant ExxonMobil has made a "world-class" discovery in Block 10 of Cyprus's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), containing 5-8 trillion cubic feet of gas, was widely seen as signifying that the energy game in the Eastern Mediterranean has only just begun and the main players' next moves will determine their future geopolitical position in the wider region.

ExxonMobil added another giant gas discovery to the east Mediterranean region after finding a gas-bearing reservoir offshore Cyprus but infrastructure bottlenecks and geopolitical disputes mean output from the field could be far off.

The Cyprus issue, energy and regional developments are among the issues to be discussed during the Cyprus-Greece-Israel trilateral summit, to be held on Thursday in the Israeli city of Beer Sheva.