PM agrees to recieve Cypriot gas through Jordon

CAIRO – 11 April 2018: Egypt’s Prime Minister Sherif Ismail welcomed the reception of Cypriot gas, either through the gas pipelines with Jordan or through high-capacity gas liquefaction plants, to get benefit from the infrastructure and geographical location Egypt is distinguished by.

This came during Cypriot Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides's visit to Egypt on Wednesday April 11, to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries, in the presence of the Cypriot ambassador to Cairo and assistant foreign minister for European affairs.

The gas pipe will make use of an already existing pipe system from depleted Egyptian gas fields to liquefaction plants at Idku and Damietta.

Egypt said it wanted to buy as much gas as Cyprus could provide from its Aphrodite gas field, as the Damietta and Idku LNG plants are 400 nautical miles (645 square kilometers) from South Cyprus, meaning that Egypt will be able to re-export the gas after importing it from Cyprus due to the low cost of transporting it.

Egypt is moving towards self-sufficiency in gas and becoming the Middle East’s energy hub, with expectations to stop importing liquefied gas by June 2018, after the production of its giant gas field, Zohr, began last December.

The Italian energy company Eni discovered in 2015 Zohr gas field in the Shorouk concession with around 850 billion cubic meters of gas.

Egypt’s gas production currently stands at 5.5 billion cubic feet a day, after adding some 1.6 million cubic feet as a result of starting production from the aforementioned projects.
Meanwhile, Egypt signed a deal in 2013 with Cyprus, allowing both states to explore oil and gas in their economic zones.

In 2017, Cyprus and Egypt agreed to start discussions on an agreement to build a gas pipe from a Cypriot natural gas field to Egypt, followed by signing an agreement between Egyptian Minister of Petroleum Tarek al-Molla and Cyprus' Minister of Energy Georgios Lacotripis to transport gas from Cyprus to Egypt via a maritime pipeline.

On November 20, President Abdel Fatah al Sisi visited Cyprus, and discussed the construction of a pipeline to deliver gas to Egypt from Cyprus’s Aphrodite field.