THE TURKISH vessel Piri Reis should complete its exploration for gas and oil by tomorrow, Turkish press said yesterday.

The Piri Reis has explored about 3,300km and needs at least two more days to explore a further 350km, the Turkish Cypriot press said yesterday.

The vessel is thought to be operating in the vicinity of Block 12 within Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) where Noble Energy has been commissioned to drill by the Cyprus Republic. Huseyin Benli, the director of Turkey’s Institute of Marine Science and Technology, which owns and operates the vessel reportedly said that the Piri Reis had to moor in Famagusta because of bad weather and would resume as soon as the weather got better.

Benli said that they would anyway remain off Cyprus’ coastline “because we have some obligations stemming from agreement we signed” with the ‘TRNC’. “If we are given new coordinates we will continue our exploration otherwise we will (hand the operations over) to the ship which will be rented from Norway,” Benli said. He was referring to the Norway-flagged Burgen Surveyor, owned by French company CGG Veritas which is conducting undersea research off Cyprus’ coast on behalf of Turkey.