President Anastasiades and energy companies Noble, Shell, and Delek urge them to speed up

President Nicos Anastasiades meet on Thursday with representatives of energy giants Noble, Shell and Delek to urge them to speed up development of ‘Aphrodite’ gas field.
The meeting between the delegation of the consortium – Noble, Shell, and Delek — that own the concession was the latest developments regarding the Aphrodite reserve, especially in light of the prospect of selling natural gas to Egypt.

After the meeting, which he attended, Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis said they discussed existing challenges as regards international oil prices and generally the hydrocarbons market.
Moreover, Lakkotrypis was among the officials who had earlier suggested that the Aphrodite and Zohr gas fields could be linked up into a single pipeline ending up in Egypt. That idea has now been abandoned, judging by Lakkotrypis’ comment that Aphrodite is to be developed as a standalone project.

Noble Energy CEO David Stover said the agreement with Egypt was going to be helpful because such deals made the projects work.
As regards the timeframes, Stover said there was a number of things that have to come together as far as the timing was concerned.
“One of the big things is we are continuing to work on how we identify the cost and firm up the cost of the project, I think it is a great market opportunity right now with very few big projects in the world moving forward, to continue to have an opportunity to develop this project in a window that is the most efficient from a cost-stand point, so we are looking very hard at what those costs would be for the project,” he said.

“This is quite telling,” energy analyst Charles Ellinas told the Cyprus Mail.

Ellinas notes for example that Shell – the big player in the Aphrodite consortium – spent some $50bn to buy out BG, and is now seeking to offload some $30bn worth of assets to pay for that acquisition.
Shell has also stated publicly that they aim to minimize spending – including cancelling projects – and focus on dividend payouts.