President of Cyprus Nikos Anastasiades ordered the government to speed up development of gas fields. Minister for Trade, Industry and Energy Giorgos Lakkotripis and heads of energy companies were ordered to work on the problem, RIA Novosti reports.
The Cyprus National Hydrocarbons Company (CNHC) expects all issues to be settled in 2015. Construction would then start in 2016, gas would be available in late 2018 – early 2019, liquefied gas complex would be launched in 2019-2020.
Cyprus has about 1.7 trillion cubic meters of gas at the Leviathan Field in the Mediterranean Sea. CNHC head said a few days ago that the gas reserves totaled 1.1 trillion cubic meters.
Turkey is opposed to the developments and insists that the resources belong to both the Greek and Turkish communities of the island. Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said yesterday that sanctions were passed against ENI (Italy) for exploration of resources in the area.
