Cyprus Mail 18 February 2025 - by Elias Hazou
The first natural gas to come to Cyprus for power generation won’t be from offshore wells in the island’s exclusive economic zone but rather imports of LNG from other countries, the energy minister said on Tuesday.
George Papanastasiou was commenting on the back of two inter-state deals signed a day earlier in Cairo – one a memorandum of understanding concerning the Aphrodite reservoir in Block 12, the other a ‘host government agreement’ relating to Block 6.
“The first natural gas coming to Cyprus will not be from the reservoirs in the Cypriot exclusive economic zone…they will be imports of LNG, which will be re-gasified at the [Vasiliko] terminal and used in conventional electricity generation,” the minister said from Cairo.
“But down the line, as some of the gas at Kronos and other reservoirs will be liquefied, some shipments from Egypt might end up at the LNG terminal at Vasiliko,” he added.
Asked whether this meant Cyprus would in the future buy the natural gas from Egypt, Papanastasiou clarified that “the gas belongs to the Republic of Cyprus, it will pass through the infrastructures, fees and taxes will be paid, and once it reaches the terminal in Egypt it will be sold, thus generating income for the Republic and the investors”.
The minister called the agreements signed with Egypt a day earlier “historic”, noting that they represent a follow-up to the inter-state agreement struck back in September 2018.
“This inter-state agreement served as a framework to bring to realisation two things: first, transporting natural gas to Egypt and, secondly, building infrastructures within Cyprus’ EEZ so that the natural gas can end up at onshore facilities in Egypt – the liquefaction terminals at Damietta and Idku.”
Regarding Block 6 – where recoverable gas has been discovered in the fields dubbed Kronos, Zeus and Calypso – the minister said the Cairo agreement sets out the purchase and sale price of the natural gas, the parties involved, and the fees and taxes to be paid.
Natural gas extracted from the Kronos field will be transported via exclusive pipeline to the liquefaction terminal in Damietta. Egypt’s Damietta port is located 10km west of the Nile River.
The terminal in question is owned by ENI, which is also the operator in the Kronos field. The Damietta facility is part of a massive LNG complex known as Segas.
For these reasons, the minister said he anticipated that the Kronos field would be commercialised before Aphrodite.
He also revealed that the government expects the companies to submit their development plan for Kronos within the next two months.
On the MoU for Block 12 and the Aphrodite reservoir, Papanastasiou said this is a ‘preliminary agreement’ which will lead up to the signing of a final, binding agreement by Cyprus, Egypt and the involved companies – Chevron, Shell and NewMed. The other parties would be the Cyprus Hydrocarbons Company and Egypt’s state-owned Egas.
In another interview with public broadcaster CyBC, the minister demurred when pressed for specific timelines.
Meanwhile the ‘government’ in the north slammed the agreements concluded by Cyprus and Egypt, calling them null and void.
