Minister Papanastasiou told Bloomberg that the parties involved “could start talks with the aim of reaching an agreement within 30 days.” The new negotiating period began on Friday.
The plan, submitted in May by a Chevron-led consortium including Shell and Israel’s NuMed Energy, aimed to connect the gas field to existing processing and production facilities in Egypt via an undersea pipeline.
Aphrodite was discovered more than a decade ago about 170 km off the city of Limassol and is estimated to contain about 124 billion cubic meters of gas.
Chevron, Shell and Newmed Energy did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.