Following Russia’s decision to scrap the South Stream gas pipeline to Europe, Greece and Cyprus pitched the East Med gas pipeline project to European Commission Vice President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic.
Greece’s Energy Minister Yiannis Maniatis and his Cypriot counterpart Giorgos Lakkotrypis met with Sefcovic on December 9 on occasion of the EU Energy Council in Brussels. Israeli Energy Minister Silvan Shalom did not attend the meeting due to his pre-election commitments in Israel.
The three countries are pushing for a subsea gas pipeline which would connect the natural gas fields in Israel and Cyprus to the European market through Greece.
In November, Israel decided to work with Cyprus for a network linking the countries of the eastern Mediterranean, asking the EU to back the East Med pipeline project. Shalom said the pipeline would ensure that European consumers get the cheapest possible gas.
Essentially, the proposal envisions Israeli and Cypriot gas as an alternative source of natural gas for Europe. Russia currently supplies approximately 30% of the gas consumed by Europe.
The 8-12-billion-cubic-metre East-Med Corridor (Israel-Cyprus-Crete-Mainland Greece-Italy) is an important project for European energy security since it will transit only EU member states and will provide an additional supply source and route, Maniatis said on December 9 in Brussels. The East Med is in the final stage of selectionof the feasibilitystudy implementation.
For his part, Sefcovic expressed interest for the project and vowed to study ways to support the project from the side of the European Commission.
Meanwhile, Maniatis and his Bulgarian and Romanian counterparts Anton Pavlov and Razvan Eugen Nicolescu issued a joint statement in Brussels on December 9 “supporting the development of a new Vertical Gas Corridor connecting Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, with a view to ensuring uninterrupted bidirectional supplies, while promoting the EU’s Priority Corridor ‘North South’ (‘NSI East Gas’) and ‘Southern Corridor’, through the swift realisation of the Projects of Common Interest and by overcoming the missing links necessary for the completion of an interconnected internal market with the financial support of European institutions”.
Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin scrapped the South Stream pipeline project – running cutting across the Black Sea and onto the European continent via Bulgaria. Russian gas monopoly Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said the project was no longer topical. “The project is closed,” he told journalists.
London-based energy expertManouchehr TakintoldNew Europeon December 9 that now that South Stream was cancelled, the EU will look at the resources available in Eastern Mediterranean. “It [the East Med pipeline] provides another source for Europe,” he said. “It all depends really if the resource base on the side of Israel is sufficient”.
At the same time, Putin said last week Russia would develop gas cooperation with Turkey and offered a discount on the gas price. During Putin’s visit to Ankara in December, Gazprom and Turkey’s Botas signed a memorandum of understanding on the construction of a seabed section of the pipeline across the Black Sea to Turkey with a capacity of 63 billion cubic metres of gas a year. Of this amount, 14 cubic metres of gas will be sold to Turkey, and the rest - about 50 billion cubic metres - will be supplied to a hub at the border between Turkey and Greece.
Gazprom said on December 8 it is establishing a new company - Gazprom-Russkaya - to build the gas pipeline to Turkey. Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov told journalists the new company is to be registered in St Petersburg and take its name from the pipeline’s head compressor station Russkaya.
Miller explained that the would-be gas pipeline to Turkey would use the same entry station as under the South Stream project - the Russkaya compressor station.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/south-stream%E2%80%99s-end-revives-east-med-pipe