Cyprus-Forum.com

[Viewpoint]

TPAO readying to explore oil off northern Cyprus
Saturday, February 3, 2007

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

In retaliation to the Greek Cypriot administration's decision to explore oil and natural gas off the Mediterranean island, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) is planning to do the same off northern Cyprus, sources said.

Officials from the Turkish Energy Ministry said TPAO efforts have been actually under way for almost one year and that they had intensified efforts in recent days.

“TPAO has already had an exploration license granted by the Turkish Cypriot government and now we'll start exploration and put the decision into practice,” ministry officials said, apparently referring to a Turkish Cypriot Cabinet decision made five years ago.

The Energy Ministry has been working on this issue, officials said, and the issue of oil and gas exploration off northern Cyprus appeared on the agenda of a National Security Council (MGK) meeting last year under the “Energy Strategy” topic.

TPAO has intensified efforts for approximately two weeks off northern Cyprus and mostly focused on “technical needs for such an exploration,” sources said. One official said TPAO does not have the technical capability for off-shore oil and gas exploration, adding that foreign companies undertook the mission of exploring natural resources in Turkish waters.

“TPAO has a license but lacks in technical capability. Therefore, this will be resolved through service procurement. The option of service procurement from one of the leading four or five exploration companies in the world will be under consideration,” the same official said.

The Energy Ministry is now working to find out which company can provide the best service procurement. Officials say a Brazilian or a Canadian company which explored oil and gas in the Black Sea in the past is likely to be chosen for service procurement. Asked how the process would evolve they say exploration will start first and then drilling in previously determined areas.

Officials are now working on detailed maps displaying northern Cyprus and after exploration, drilling work will start. If a positive outcome is reached as a result, oil or natural gas production will begin. But the officials do not give specific “timing” for exploration and only say it will start “soon.”

“This process also partly depends on steps to be taken by the Greek Cypriot administration,” they note. Turkey has not taken the initiative to start oil and gas exploration off northern Cyprus so far, but may do so if the Greek Cypriots go ahead with their own exploration activities.

In the meantime, when asked how the exploration work will be financed, ministry officials said TPAO has already put aside a certain amount of funding for exploration and the Turkish step to start exploration off northern Cyprus will be financed from the TPAO budget.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/arti ... wsid=65399

the sneaky bastards started a year ago, said nothing about it, no mention of others rights and they have the balls to demand rights.

it just goes to show you the mentality. what's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine.

and talat the court jester is throwing threats around ffs

Great news, way to go.....we should look and find oil for ourselves.

[reportfromcyprus]

This is a lethal playground, boys, hope you are ready for the fallout.

[shahmaran]

in a previous posts you claimed some rights.
shahmaran wrote

so what we are not Cypriots? just because you dont see us as a real country doesnt mean we dont see ourselves like a real country either! we are Cypriots and we have just as much right to this island and everything it comes with as anyone else! so THIS is where you are dillusional, by thinking that we were just going to sit back and watch you claim the whole island like you have been trying to do so for so long, this oil issue is not new is it, its been going on since before 74, so at what point did RoC think that we had just given up on everything?

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 11&start=0


if you prefer to be occupied what rights have you got to the oil? aren't your occupiers supplying you enough?

the point is we want neither, i thought that would have been clear by now....

[reportfromcyprus]

in a previous posts you claimed some rights.
shahmaran wrote

so what we are not Cypriots? just because you dont see us as a real country doesnt mean we dont see ourselves like a real country either! we are Cypriots and we have just as much right to this island and everything it comes with as anyone else! so THIS is where you are dillusional, by thinking that we were just going to sit back and watch you claim the whole island like you have been trying to do so for so long, this oil issue is not new is it, its been going on since before 74, so at what point did RoC think that we had just given up on everything?

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 11&start=0


if you prefer to be occupied what rights have you got to the oil? aren't your occupiers supplying you enough?

the point is we want neither, i thought that would have been clear by now....

If you want clarity, go to another part of the world. In this part of the world, everything is twisted to advantage, and goebbels himself would be proud of the blatant use of propaganda.

I'm glad you think for yourself shahmaran, I see that, but don't expect others to do so.

[shahmaran]

in a previous posts you claimed some rights.
shahmaran wrote

so what we are not Cypriots? just because you dont see us as a real country doesnt mean we dont see ourselves like a real country either! we are Cypriots and we have just as much right to this island and everything it comes with as anyone else! so THIS is where you are dillusional, by thinking that we were just going to sit back and watch you claim the whole island like you have been trying to do so for so long, this oil issue is not new is it, its been going on since before 74, so at what point did RoC think that we had just given up on everything?

http://www.cyprus-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 11&start=0


if you prefer to be occupied what rights have you got to the oil? aren't your occupiers supplying you enough?

the point is we want neither, i thought that would have been clear by now....

If you want clarity, go to another part of the world. In this part of the world, everything is twisted to advantage, and goebbels himself would be proud of the blatant use of propaganda.

I'm glad you think for yourself shahmaran, I see that, but don't expect others to do so.

well then all i have to do is lead these lost fools to the right path

[reportfromcyprus]

Go for it I for one am so tired of the endless bickering and refusal to cooperate between the two sides that I've started to see Cyprus as an abandoned car that everyone has forgotten by the side of the highway.

If it catches fire, then people notice it; otherwise, it's an overlooked piece of junk thrown to the side of the road by history, being argued over by two tramps who have nothing better to do. Meaningless doesn't even begin to cover it.

[humanist]

shahmaran, it has nothing to do nothing for eye for an eye (except in the bitter, bullying double standard eyes of turkey and its supporters), but justice, good for you at least if you find oil then you will leave the RoC alone to enjoy their profits. the best advice i can give to turkish speaking cypriots is move to the south if you wanna better your future and that of your chldren, especially those of you who travel to the south everyday for work. the rest of you can stay and pay homage to your mother country.

ia ma pissed off at your attitude and support of turkey war threats you wanna be turkish go right ahead n go blow your own brains out NO WAR FOR CYPRUS.

at least if turkey finds oil in the north of cyprus she may live the south alone and not go ahead with her threats.

[shahmaran]

no need to get pissed off, i dont want war what so ever, infact id be more then happy if RoC would just take its oil and leave us alone, but ofcourse that would be not so easy now would it, doesnt matter how disgustingly ritch they get they will never get their claws off us, so RoC keeping their oil will not do ANYTHING for the TRNC...

about moving, like i have said there are many people like me who would find moving extremely impossible since everything we own is in the north, so there is absolutely nothing for me in the south...

[donyork]

The oil question in the eastern Med seems to be much more worrying than some of the yah-boo comments on this site seem to suggest, with the risk of costly even fatal political consequences long before any bucks turn up in the till. The long-running dispute between Greece and Turkey over the Aegean was the cause of much sabre-rattling only a few years ago and remains unresolved. But the estimated value of the Aegean is markedly less than that for the sea between Turkey and north Cyprus — reports put it at worth 50% of Turkey’s present imports. Until now, however, the political issues relating to exploration have made its development problematic firstly because big companies are reluctant to invest mega-millions in disputed areas and secondly because Turkey’s EU process made any development too sensitive to pursue.

The concern in this current furore is that the RoC knew perfectly well that its secret agreement with Lebanon (seen in Ankara as a dummy) would infuriate Turkey and and if implemented would be cause for Turkey — which, of course, does not recognise the RoC — doing everything it can to start exploration in the sea to the north with whatever partners it can find. The RoC will then dispute their right to do so, the EU will be dragged into the row, and a new crisis will blow up which may very well full stop any hopes of a resolution of the Cyprus problem with partition the outcome. The question is whether in these circumstances the EU will act as mediator — in order to keep Turkey on board — or back the RoC with Turkey in consequence abandoning its EU process. The short-term outcome is therefore high risk, for a cash return which at best is many years away and where one of the partners — Lebanon — is also high risk.


It might have been preferable perhaps if the RoC had first sought the approval of the EU on the basis that it would through the EU guarantee that the interests of the TCs were generously taken into account (earning political goodwill which would have at a stroke silenced TC protests with potentially the prize of driving a wedge between the North and Turkey) but Papa Dop is not the man to play his cards that way. So Cyprus is yet again another headache for Brussels, caught up once more in the obsessive gamesmanship of the RoC. There is always a price for oil. So what price here?

[humanist]

good on you Shahmaran, good for standing up for what you believe in, even though that is the opposite to what I want for our country but at least you are standing up for what you believe in.