SYRIA - The Offshore Prospects.

Off Syria's Mediterranean coast facing Cyprus, there are areas believed to contain oil and gas. If Plio-Pleistocene reservoirs similar to the gas-rich Fms in Egypt's Nile Delta and economic zone in the Mediterranean are found on Syria's side of the territorial waters, then this country could eventually become a major producer and exporter of natural gas.

All the countries in the East Mediterranean are now looking into such prospects offshore. This follows major gas discoveries made off Egypt, off the Gaza Strip and off Israel.

InSeisTerra, a seismic survey company of Norway, in early May 2005 began a seismic shoot off Syria after signing an exclusive 10-year agreement with SPC and the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources. The deal covers the acquisition, processing and interpretation of non-exclusive seismic data from areas off Syria. The shoot consisted of about 5,000 km of long-offset 2D seismic, covering the entire Syrian offshore sector and was to be "the only recognised official data set".

The agreement granted InSeisTerra the rights to conduct non-exclusive 2D and 3D seismic, as well as electro-magnetic seabed logging surveys. InSeisTerra was also given the right to handle the marketing and licencing of the geophysical data to the international petroleum industry. InSeismicTerra President Erik Hokholt was in March 2005 quoted as saying the official dataset "will become a very valuable tool for evaluating Syrian offshore acreage prior to the first offshore licencing round". The agreement includes the training of SPC personnel during the acquisition and processing phases.

The new 2D survey will prepare the ground for Syria's first offshore licencing round, with an announcement of blocks on offer expected to take place in the summer of 2006. According to Jan Gateman, senior vice president of geology and geophysics at InSeisTerra, the offshore area "is already known to contain a thick sedimentary column with a variety of play types such as large anti-clinal features, structural traps and stratigraphic plays".