Cyprus halts drilling talks with Total-Novatek
Wednesday - 12/19/2012, 10:50am ET
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) -- Cyprus has broken off licensing negotiations for offshore natural gas drilling with a consortium made up of French firm Total S.A. and Russia's Novatek.
Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou says that progress in those talks were "unsatisfactory."
Stefanou said Wednesday negotiations will begin with a company composed of Italy's ENI S.p.a and South Korea's Kogas for the same area -- or block -- that the Russian-French consortium had sought to drill in.
The ENI-Kogas company is already negotiating with Cyprus to drill in two other blocks.
Total is negotiating for a block of its own and Stefanou said those talks will be expanded for a second one.
All the blocks surround a gas field estimated to hold 5-8 trillion cubic feet (140-230 billion cubic meters).
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