ExxonMobil is taking to a more advanced stage of maturity the project of exploring  the Greek concessions for the two areas west and southwest of Crete in its joint venture with Helleniq Energy.

The start of the licensing procedures for exploratory drilling could, according to some interpretations, discount the investment decision and certainly the American company’s pursuit of speeding up the licensing times in case it proceeds with drilling.

Last month, US company CSA, a certified partner of ExxonMobli, employed a vessel of EDT Offshore, one of the main providers of equipped vessels and specialized crew for the oil and gas sector in the Eastern Mediterranean, to carry out combined surveys southwest of Crete and south of the Peloponnese. Its primary objective was to record the existing environment and the secondary objective to detect the possible natural presence of hydrocarbons in the surface sediments.

The EDT vessel has collected information on, among others, animal characteristics (plankton, phytoplankton, dissolved oxygen, eutrophication indicators, microfauna, etc.), salinity, PH, particulates, heavy metals, existing hydrocarbons (from natural sources, ships, cargo etc.) etc. In addition, sediment samples have been obtained, which will be geochemically analyzed.

With this particular methodology, as EDEYEP officials have explained to Kathimerini, samples of surface sediments are collected and analyzed in order to establish whether natural micro-leakages of gases are detected, depending on the sample.

Source: Ekathimerini.com