Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Turkish state oil company, TPAO, for conducting geological and geophysical studies in four offshore areas.

With this move, Tripoli is attempting to activate the illegal Turkey-Libya memorandum, which was extensively referenced by Kyriakos Mitsotakis during the NATO leaders’ summit.

“Discussions also took place regarding the conduct of a two-dimensional seismic survey (spanning 10,000 kilometers) and the processing of the resulting data within a period not exceeding nine months,” stated Libya’s state oil company in its announcement.

NOC said that the agreement was signed in Istanbul by executives of the two companies. Specifically, NOC was represented by its Chairman of the Board, Eng. Masoud Suleman, and TPAO by its General Director, Mr. Ahmet Turkoglu.

It is still unknown which areas are covered by this Turkish-Libyan agreement, although previously Libya had delineated six “blocks,” two of which followed and respected the median line as defined by Greece under Law 4001/2011.

The signing of this agreement comes just a few days after tensions sparked by Libya, with diplomatic démarches from both Tripoli and Benghazi, concerning the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union of the tender announcement for blocks south of Crete, in which the American energy giant Chevron has expressed interest.