Total, Exxon express interest in gas exploration off Crete

ATHENS (Reuters)—A consortium that includes Total, ExxonMobil and Hellenic Petroleum has submitted an expression of interest in oil and gas exploration and exploitation in two sites off the Greek island of Crete.

Greece has launched an ambitious program to discover more oil and gas, encouraged by recent large gas finds in the Eastern Mediterranean and spurred on by its protracted financial crisis.

Last week it granted a concession to Hellenic Petroleum for onshore exploration at two sites in the west of the country, and to privately held Energean for another block. Greece's energy minister also held talks with representatives of Total and ExxonMobil last week about exploration opportunities.

In 2014, Greece tendered 20 blocks in the Ionian Sea and south of Crete; however, only three were successfully offered.

"If there is evidence of the existence of exploitable hydrocarbons, it is certain that our country will enter a new era," Hellenic Petroleum Chairman Efstathios Tsotsoros said in a statement. It would entail "…obvious benefits for the national economy, local societies, as well as the upgrading of Greece in geopolitics and energy," he said.

Gulf Publishing Company will host its successful annual Eastern Mediterranean Gas Conference in Nicosia, Cyprus in March 2018. For a review of this year's EMGC, please see event news.

Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou and Karolina Tagaris; editing by Susan Fenton

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