Cyprus Gas
in Numbers
The Republic quotes 17–18 tcf across 6 fields. The per-field figures quoted alongside it do not add up to that number, and none of it is producing yet. This page is the arithmetic behind the headline.
Updated October 2026 · Sources: Cyprus Ministry of Energy, operator disclosures
Why 17–18 tcf is not a sum
Every Cypriot field is quoted in a different unit of accounting. Ranking them on one bar tells you which headline number is biggest — not which field holds the most producible gas. The category beside each bar is what decides whether two numbers can be compared at all.
4 published statements, which do not agree
- 3.7 TcfGas in placeDocument2022Glaucus alone, the ministry’s best estimate after the Glaucus-2 appraisal wellStated in Cyprus MECI Hydrocarbons Serviceprimary
- 5–8 tcfGas in placeDocument2019-02-28Glaucus-1 alone, on preliminary interpretation of the well data, before any appraisal wellStated in ExxonMobil, Glaucus-1 discovery releaseprimary
- ~7 tcfAs reportedRelayed remark2026-04-03Glaucus and Pegasus combinedRelayed by Cyprus energy minister Michalis Damianos, press conference — Cyprus Mail
- 8–9 tcfAs reportedRelayed remark2025-09-25Glaucus and Pegasus combined. The report says "ExxonMobil officials told President Nikos Christodoulides" that the blocks "may contain as much as 8-9 trillion cubic feet", and names vice president John Ardill as heading the delegation — so the figure is the company’s and attributing the sentence to him personally would be an inferenceRelayed by ExxonMobil, to the President of Cyprus in New York — relayed by the President and the energy minister, via the Cyprus Mail
3 published statements, which do not agree
- 2.9 tcf2C contingentDocument2026-02-28Aphrodite reservoir, 2C contingent resources, "development pending" maturity subclass only — the sanctioned, FID-bound phase — as of 28 February 2026 (2,881.1 Bcf)Stated in NSAI, Feb 2026 (sanctioned phase)primary
- 3.7 Tcf2C contingentDocument2026-02-28Aphrodite reservoir, TOTAL 2C contingent resources — development pending plus development unclarified maturity subclasses combined — as of 28 February 2026 (3,665.5 Bcf). Includes resources with no approved development plan, which the 2.9 Tcf sanctioned-phase figure above excludes.Stated in NSAI, Feb 2026 (total contingent)primary
- 5.6 TcfGas in placeDocument2023Aphrodite field, the ministry’s best estimate of gas in place after the Cyprus A-3 well — not comparable with the 2C contingent recoverable figure aboveStated in Cyprus MECI Hydrocarbons Serviceprimary
2 published statements, which do not agree
- 2–3 TCFPreliminaryDocument2022-12-21the Zeus-1 reservoir, gas in place "preliminarily estimated between 2 and 3 TCF"Stated in Eni, Zeus-1 discovery releaseprimary
- 2.5 TcfGas in placeDocument2022Zeus discovery alone, the ministry’s best estimate — inside Eni’s range, not against itStated in Cyprus MECI Hydrocarbons Serviceprimary
No figure published — 2 statements on record
Under evaluation. Eight years after the discovery the ministry still states "Calypso discovery is under evaluation", and no appraisal well has been drilled on Calypso. Eni’s discovery release announced "a lean gas discovery" and said "Additional studies will be carried out to assess the range of the gas volumes in place" — it gave no figure. The two figures on record are the only ones ever put on this field, and neither is a document.
- ~1 tcfAs reportedRelayed remark2022-09-13the low end of a downside scenario — the report says Calypso "could contain as little as 28–42 Bcm", and the footnote carrying the personal communication sits on the preceding sentence, so the attribution itself is an inference from the paragraph. The same report’s table note says "There is no official reserve announcement"Relayed by Columbia SIPA/CGEP, "Eastern Mediterranean Deepwater Gas to Europe" — the figure attributed by the report’s own footnote to a personal communication (Charles Ellinas)
- 6–8 tcfAs reportedRelayed remark2018-02-13Calypso-1, five days after the discovery and before any appraisal. The 6–8 figure was the journalist’s: asked whether the field holds around 6 to 8 tcf, Descalzi answered "It could be more or in that range… for sure it cannot be less but we have to understand it". Eni never volunteered itRelayed by Eni chief executive Claudio Descalzi, answering a question at an industry event in Cairo — Cyprus Mail
No figure published — 4 statements on record
No document states a figure for Pegasus. The ministry’s Block 10 entry lists only Delphyne-1, Glaucus-1 and Glaucus-2 and gives one gas-in-place figure, for Glaucus; ExxonMobil’s own Block 10 release predates the discovery by six years. The two combined figures on record are spoken remarks relayed by the press, and the Pegasus appraisal well has not been drilled.
- 3.7 TcfGas in placeDocument2022Glaucus alone, the ministry’s best estimate after the Glaucus-2 appraisal wellStated in Cyprus MECI Hydrocarbons Serviceprimary
- 5–8 tcfGas in placeDocument2019-02-28Glaucus-1 alone, on preliminary interpretation of the well data, before any appraisal wellStated in ExxonMobil, Glaucus-1 discovery releaseprimary
- ~7 tcfAs reportedRelayed remark2026-04-03Glaucus and Pegasus combinedRelayed by Cyprus energy minister Michalis Damianos, press conference — Cyprus Mail
- 8–9 tcfAs reportedRelayed remark2025-09-25Glaucus and Pegasus combined. The report says "ExxonMobil officials told President Nikos Christodoulides" that the blocks "may contain as much as 8-9 trillion cubic feet", and names vice president John Ardill as heading the delegation — so the figure is the company’s and attributing the sentence to him personally would be an inferenceRelayed by ExxonMobil, to the President of Cyprus in New York — relayed by the President and the energy minister, via the Cyprus Mail
2 published statements, which do not agree
- No quantity statedAs reportedDocumentOnesiphoros-1; the ministry states only that the well "did not encounter commercial quantities of hydrocarbons" and gives no volumeStated in Cyprus MECI Hydrocarbons Serviceprimary
- less than 0.5 tcfAs reportedRelayed remark2017-09-12Onesiphoros-1, "found to contain less than half a trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas" and so not commercially viable; TotalEnergies published nothing about the wellRelayed by Cyprus energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, 12 September 2017 — Cyprus Mail
† marks a published resource figure in the table above with no primary source on file. It covers those figures and nothing else. Every other number on this page — in the prose, the milestones, the development notes and the answers — is outside it, and many of those have no source recorded at all and carry no mark either, so the absence of a mark says nothing about them. Where a field has no published figure, the absence is explained in the text and cannot be marked.
Where an operator quotes a range, the solid bar is its low end and the pale bar its high end.
Add the midpoints and you land close to the government's 17–18 tcf headline. That arithmetic adds gas in place to audited recoverable resources to a two-field estimate, so the total is a headline, not a measurement — and the honest way to compare two fields is to compare them inside the same category.
For measures derived from these records rather than quoted from them — how long each field waited for a decision, how the strike rate changed — see the benchmarks.
The acreage
The Cypriot EEZ is divided into 13 blocks: 7 under licence, 3 handed back after drilling, 3 never awarded.
The drill bit
Those 6 fields came from 11 exploration wells — a strike rate most frontier basins never see.
When the gas was found
Six commercial fields in 15 years — and a 6-year silence in the middle that nearly ended the programme.
Hollow marker: Onesiphoros West found gas but not enough to develop, so it is not counted among the 6 commercial fields. Dates are the year each field was announced, not the year drilling started.
Take the data
Everything on this page is published as open files under CC BY 4.0 — machine-readable, CORS-enabled, and stable enough to cite in a report.
Questions people actually ask
What are the total gas reserves in Cyprus?
The Republic of Cyprus officially estimates roughly 17–18 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas across 6 commercial-scale fields: Aphrodite, Calypso, Glaucus, Cronos, Zeus, Pegasus. Per-field figures mix recoverable and gas-in-place categories, so they are not strictly additive.
What is the largest gas field in Cyprus?
The ExxonMobil-operated Block 10 hub — Glaucus (2019) and Pegasus (2025) together — is the largest resource concentration, though no document states a figure for the two fields together — the written ministry estimate, for Glaucus alone, is 3.7 tcf of gas in place. Among single sanctioned developments, Aphrodite (Block 12) holds roughly 2.9 tcf of audited recoverable resource and Cronos (Block 6) 3.1 tcf of gas in place.
When will Cyprus start producing gas?
First production is expected around 2028 from the Cronos field, exporting via Egypt's Zohr facilities and Damietta LNG. Aphrodite targets first gas around 2030–31 and the Block 10 hub near 2033. Cyprus currently produces no oil or gas.
How do Cyprus gas reserves compare to the region?
Cyprus's ~17–18 tcf is significant but smaller than Israel's discovered resources (over 40 tcf, led by Leviathan at ~22.9 tcf) and Egypt's Zohr (~30 tcf of gas-in-place). The USGS estimates the wider Levantine Basin holds a mean of ~122 tcf of undiscovered recoverable gas.
Updated October 2026 · Sources: Cyprus Ministry of Energy, operator disclosures