Cypriots who will have up to 9.9 percent of their bank accounts seized to pay for part of the cost of the country’s bailout from international lenders will get in return bonds from natural gas earnings off the island’s coast as collateral, newly-elected President Nicos Anastasiades promised in a televised address, trying to defuse growing anger ahead of a critical vote by the Parliament whether to back the scheme...
... “In recognition of its obligations, the state will offer to those who will keep their deposits in Cyprus bonds equal to half of their contribution now, linked to the future public revenues from natural gas,” he said, adding that all this is meant to relieve future generations from the consequences of this generation’s mistakes...
/... http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/03/17/cyprus-promises-gas-bonds-to-depositors/
NICOSIA, March 14 (Reuters) - Cyprus, urgently needing revenues from its newly found natural gas reserves, hopes to begin exports by 2018 and will target sales at fellow European Union members, its energy minister said.
George Lakkotrypis also said gas could be sold in advance or used to help the government, which is now negotiating a multibillion-dollar bailout, to issue new debt on international markets in future.
U.S. company Noble Energy and the Cypriot government announced in 2011 that they had discovered gas deposits of around 7-8 trillion cubic feet (200 billion cubic metres), 40 percent of the EU's annual demand.
Aphrodite, as the gas field is known, has more gas than Cyprus could use in over a century, so the government hopes to boost its revenues through exports to the European Union.
"It is important to us not just economically but also geostrategically," Lakkotrypis told Reuters in an interview, referring to potential exploration partners...
/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/cyprus-natgas-exports-idUKL6N0C6AG520130314
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) February 11, 2013 — A US firm has ceded 30 percent of its rights to a gas field off Cyprus’ south coast to Israel’s Delek and its subsidiary Avner Oil Exploration.
Cypriot Commerce Minister Neoklis Sylikiotis said Monday’s agreement came after the government approved it last week.
No sums were disclosed. The field holds an estimated 5-8 trillion cubic feet (140-230 billion cubic meters) of gas.
Noble and Delek together hold a majority stake in an Israeli offshore gas field that’s more than twice the size of the Cypriot one...
/... http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-firm-gains-rights-to-cypriot-gas-field/
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