NICOSIA, Cyprus — A consortium made up of ExxonMobil and partner Qatar Energy International has made a second natural gas discovery beneath the seabed south of Cyprus, the government said Monday, a find that bolsters the region’s potential as an energy exporter.
New natural gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean could help Europe lessen its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons by diversifying its energy supply and help buttress a budding energy partnership between Cyprus, Greece and Israel, said John Sitilides, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and geopolitical strategist at Trilogy Advisors in Washington.
“Washington and Brussels would be wise to support this hydrocarbon network to develop a greater measure of critical energy independence for Europe’s hopeful re-industrialization,” Sitilides said.
Cypriot government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said in a written statement that ExxonMobil’s vice president, John Ardill, briefed Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides about the discovery at the Pegasus-1 well