Noble is to press ahead and drill a second well on its Aphrodite gas discovery offshore Cyprus, most likely using the semi-submersible Ensco 5006.
If drilling of Aphrodite-2 on Cyprus block 12 is successful, the well may be used as a production well in the future.
A budget has been set at $117 million and spudding is imminent. Drilling operations are expected to take about four months.
Results from the Aphrodite-1 well, formation logs and initial evaluation work indicate an estimated gross resource range of 5-8trillion cu.ft of gas, with a gross mean of 7TCF.