French company Total preparing to drill off Cyprus for natural gas, says ministry source.

French company Total preparing to drill off Cyprus for natural gas, says ministry source. (Famagusta).

Total, along with Italy's ENI and Exxon Mobil, was awarded licenses for hydrocarbons exploration by Cyprus last month.

The ministry source said Total plans to drill in block 11 of Cyprus' exclusive economic zone, which shares a boundary to the south with the giant Egyptian Zohr natural gas well, the largest ever field discovered in the eastern Mediterranean.

"We do not know yet when the drill will start, but we were notified that it will be soon," the source said.

The Zohr discovery by ENI reinvigorated interest in the eastern Mediterranean natural gas as the drilling was done in carbonate layers, whereas previous successful natural gas drilling was carried out in lime layers.

A Total official said recently that the company's interest in Cypriot block 11 was prompted by its proximity to the Zohr discovery, estimated to contain 30 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Cypriot experts have said that block 11 sits on an undersea mountain range known as Eratosthenis, which was considered to be the source of all hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean.

The news about the impending drilling comes as efforts to solve the Cyprus problem are nearing a peak, with guarantor countries Greece, Turkey and Britain joining in discussions about security arrangements.

Turkey objects to drilling by Cyprus without the active participation of Turkish Cypriots, who pulled out of the government and the state 53 years ago.

The discovery of natural gas in Cyprus' continental shelf by United States-based Noble Energy and nearby discoveries by Israel is considered by analysts to be a factor strongly influencing Turkey's interest in solving the Cyprus dispute.

Cyprus and Egypt signed a framework agreement last August for the transfer of natural gas discovered by Noble Energy via pipe to Egypt's liquefaction terminals. The gas field, about 85 km off Cyprus' southern shores, is estimated to contain 4.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Some analysts say that Turkey counts on joining in on the proceeds from the gas by offering facilities for a gas pipe through its territory to Europe.
An alternative route for the pipe is from the gas fields to Cyprus and Greece and from there to Prindisi in southern Italy.

This route had originally been excluded because of the high cost involved in the project which calls for a pipe 2,000 km long, most of it on the sea bed, capable of a yearly capacity of 12 billion cubic meters of gas.

But recent revised estimates by the European Union lowered the cost to around 5 billion euros, which is considered by specialists to be a viable proposition.

The director general of the energy ministries of Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Italy are to meet in Brussels on Monday to consider plans for the project.

Their talks will prepare a meeting of the Energy Ministers of the four countries scheduled for next month in Jerusalem.

MFS -The Other News - What the main papers don't say.

  Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Vanuata 5.8 - 5.5 ; Peru 5.7 -  5.5  !More info here.

• What Obama really wants to do in Iran.(IsraelMatzav).What if I told you that Barack Hussein Obama really wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon? What if I told you that what he really wants is to replace the Saudi Sunni dominance of World oil supplies with Iranian Shia dominance? What if I told you that Obama wanted Hosni Mubarak to fall and wanted to destroy Libya's supply of Tomohawk missiles that could have reached Iran? Mark Langfan claims all that and more, and he sounds pretty plausible.Crazy you say? The Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim, attending at a recent Gulf security conference with US diplomats, “undiplomatically” for over 18 minutes calmly stated, in essence:

1) “US Policy is the Number One threat” to the Gulf States;

2) America “has realized the dreams of Iran in Iraq;”

3) the US has “adopted the path and ideology of Khomeini;” and

4) the US “is no longer an ally” of the Gulf States.

Why does Obama constantly refer to the ragtag, disjointed, barely-existing Sunni al Qaeda as the "greatest threat to the US" when the Shiite Iran and its Hizbullah and Iraqi based proxies have killed many times more US soldiers and US civilians in the past 20 years than al Qaeda has, - and Iran is nearing the acquisition of nuclear bomb and constantly claiming Israel is a "cancerous tumor" that needs to be "cut out" of the Middle East?The answer can be found in Obama’ first documented foreign "policy" speech in 2002 dubbed the "Iraq War Speech" where Obama unambiguously declared:“You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality. . . .” - Barack Obama’s Iraq Speech dated Oct. 2, 2002.From Obama’s very first recorded words on US foreign policy, Saudi Arabia, and not Iran, was to Obama, America’s Number one enemy.Read the full story here.

• ObamaCare Costs Up $111 BILLION DOLLARS!(OFB).Who's ready for some more bad news about the skyrocketing costs and predictably epic mismanagement of ObamaCare?Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation. Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program. The revised numbers, buried deep in the president's budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials for most of the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes. At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that will open for business in 2014. Last year's budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2011. This year's budget puts it at $478 billion over the same time period. "This staggering increase ... cannot be explained by legislative changes or new economic assumptions, and therefore must reflect substantial changes in underlying assumptions regarding the program's ... costs," Camp wrote Friday in a letter to Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Republicans say they're concerned that either the estimated cost of the insurance has gone up, or that the administration has determined many more people will be losing employer coverage and going into the new government-subsidized markets, which will be called exchanges. Administration officials say the big increase from last year's estimates is no cause for alarm and that the administration is not forecasting an erosion of employer coverage or higher insurance costs.Read the full story here.

• Spain will extradite Salem to Egypt.(BM).CAIRO: Egypt’s State Information Service has reported that he office of the attorney general of Spain told Egyptian Ambassador in Madrid Ayman Zain el-Dine that the Spanish court, which heard an Egyptian request on the extradition of fugitive Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem, agreed on handing over Salem and his son to Egypt, said official spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Amr Roshdi. The court is still considering the extradition of Salem’s daughter, added Roshdi.Salem is wanted on charges of corruption and looting funds from Egypt.Salem is an Egyptian businessman, co-owner of the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG), and was an advisor to former president Hosni Mubarak. He is also the chairman and CEO of HKS Group, a hospitality company that operates Maritim Jolie Ville Resort in Sharm El Sheikh.Salem absconded from Egypt during the 2011 revolution. A warrant for his arrest was issued by Interpol. He was later arrested at his home in Madrid, Spain. Salem is currently under investigation for corruption, on charges he bribed Mubarak and his family to gain a monopoly on the sale of gas to Israel, and for squandering public funds by selling Egyptian natural gas to Israel at below market prices. The gas-to-Israel issue was a big story, when it broke in Egypt, and caused nothing short of rage on the streets of Egypt.Read the full story here.

• FIFA to decide on headscarf and technology in July.(AA).By Mike Collett.FIFA deferred a final decision on whether Islamic women can play in a headscarf, or hijab, until July when they will also make their long-awaited decision on what goal-line technology system to employ.The annual meeting of the game's ultimate law-making body, the International Football Association Board, decided on Saturday to test the specially designed headscarf further before a final decision is taken in a special meeting in Kiev on July 2.Two systems of two companies, Hawk-Eye and GoalRef, will be tested again.In other decisions, proposals to introduce a fourth substitute in extra-time in Cup matches and limiting the severity of the triple sanction punishment on goal-scoring opportunities, by which an offender can concede a penalty, receive a red card and then a suspension, were withdraw.Read the full story here.

• Bodies of Western journalists killed in Syria arrive in France.(BM).Paris (dpa) – The bodies of the two Western journalists killed in Syria last week arrived in France Sunday, AFP news agency reported.A plane carrying the remains of American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, who were killed in a rocket attack on the rebel Baba Amr district of Homs on February 22, arrived in Paris from Damascus shortly after 6 am (0500 GMT), AFP said.Relatives of Ochlik were at the airport to meet the regular Air France flight, the report added.On Saturday, officials from the Syrian Red Crescent handed over the bodies of Ochlik and Colvin to French and Polish diplomats.Syrian rebels had buried the two journalists in Baba Amr to preserve their remains during days of regime bombardment.They were disinterred after government forces entered the area and brought back to Damascus.Ochlik’s family plan to bury him in France, AFP reported. The final destination of Colvin’s remains was unclear.Born in the United States, she worked for many years as a reporter for Britain’s Sunday Times.Read the full story here.