Drilling offshore Cyprus’ plot 11 or ‘Onisiforos’ by energy giants TOTAL and ENI with the West Capella rig has reached the first 2,430 meters in ocean floor depth, Phileleftheros reported on Wednesday.

And this means that the first of eight overall stages of scheduled drilling – which began a week ago – is now complete.

“At this level, the drilling operation is effectively interrupted for a while so as to ‘cement’ the drilling, that is to install a cement protective sleeve,” the daily also said.

“In addition, the first leakage prevention system is also installed and this process is expected to continue until the end of this week,” it added.

The Onisiforos W-1 well is expected to be completed within 75 days approximately and expected to reach a depth of 4,250 below sea level with an ocean floor depth of 1,698 metres.

Results for the first well in what Cyprus calls the second licensing round in the eastern Mediterranean, are expected to be known by the beginning to mid-September.

Drilling crews on the West Capella had started preliminary testing on July 14, days only before the scheduled start of operations.

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