EastMed pipeline to restrain Turkish ambitions in taking over Mediterranean gas

Shaimaa Yahia

An agreement signed between Greece, Cyprus, and Israel to construct an undersea pipeline to carry natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe has ended Turkey’s aspiration to take over power resources in the region.

The agreement, signed on January 2, stipulates constructing a 1,900-kilometer undersea pipeline, while the three MedStream governments will next put the project out for bids from private investors for financing. The countries hope to reach a final investment decision by 2022 and aim to have the pipeline completed by 2025.

It comes about two months after Turkey signed two agreements with the Libyan government. One was a security agreement in which Ankara pledged military support despite an international embargo. The second gave Turkey control of a large swath of the eastern Mediterranean between the two countries.

The pipeline seeks to exclude Turkey from lucrative transit fees in distributing vast gas reserves discovered off the Israeli coast to Europe.

The pipeline will be constructed with an initial annual capacity of 10 billion cubic meters (bcm), which is expandable to 20bcm in maximum. The budget for the 10 billion bcm is 5.2 billion euros (5.8 billion U.S. dollars), according to a Greek Environment and Energy Ministry press release.

As for Greece, despite the limited oil discoveries in the special economic zone, it is heading towards playing an important role in securing energy transfer to the European side.

Last March, Greece launched an international tender for a study on the feasibility of a proposed pipeline to carry gas from Israel and Cyprus in an effort to reduce dependence on Russian supplies.

It would stretch from Israel’s Leviathan natural gas field to Greece and onto European markets through the IGI-Poseidon pipeline, led by Italian utility Edison and state-controlled Greek utility DEPA.

On the other hand, the rival TurkStream project will carry a maximum of 31.5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually to Turkey, however, it faces many U.S. sanctions, putting Ankara in a dilemma of choosing between Moscow and Washington, as choosing either of them will damage relations with the other.

The project is backed by the United States and the European Union, as Washington insists that Europe should become less dependent on natural gas supplies from Russia.