Eni signs up to $1.8 billion in Cronos gas contracts off Cyprus, with McDermott laying the subsea lines

The contracts were signed at the Presidential Palace in Nicosia with Christodoulides and Energy Minister Michalis Damianos present, Oil & Gas Middle East reported. Eni itself gave no value. According to ENR, this is the first time Cypriot gas has moved toward production since the island's first offshore find in 2011, and the whole project could cost up to $3 billion. Eni is operator of Block 6 and owns half of it, TotalEnergies has the other half, and the partners approved the project on July 28.

ENR reported that Houston-based Baker Hughes will design and build the subsea production system: four deepwater trees plus wellheads, manifolds and topside controls. McDermott, also from Houston, will engineer, procure, lay and commission the subsea pipelines and hardware on a contract valued between $500 million and $750 million, which it disclosed in September. Halliburton has a multi-year package for well construction and completions, including cementing, directional drilling and coiled tubing.

TechnipFMC will supply flexible production lines and Oceaneering International the umbilicals and subsea controls. China Merchants Heavy Industry will build and install a floating control unit. Saipem will drill with its Saipem 10000 drillship from late 2026 or early 2027. In Egypt, Petrojet will build a new onshore pipeline from the Zohr processing plant to the Damietta LNG terminal.

Gas will flow by pipeline to Egypt for processing at Zohr and liquefaction at Damietta, then ship mainly to Europe. Oil & Gas Middle East reported that first gas is targeted for the first half of 2028, with output expected to top out at 500 million standard cubic feet daily from a field holding over 3 trillion cubic feet of gas in place. Values of the other contracts have not been published, and Cyprus has never brought a gas field into commercial production, Asharq Al-Awsat noted.