Energy Ministers Giorgos Lakkotrypis, Panos Skourletis and Yuval Steinitz also discussed the promotion of the project of electrical interconnection between Israel - Cyprus - Greece through Crete and the new liquefied gas station in Alexandroupolis in northern Greece.

Skourletis, Lakkotrypis and Steinitz agreed to present a first financial and technical study on East Med by the end of October.

It was also announced that in December a new meeting will be held between the heads of state and government of the three countries in Israel.

During the joint press conference, the three Ministers spoke about significant prospects of finding and exploiting new natural gas reserves both in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Cyprus and Israel.

In his statements after the meeting, the Cypriot Minister noted that today`s discussion is the continuation of the three heads of states’ meeting that took place in Nicosia and the Nicosia Declaration, which contains the strategic energy dialogue to create a gas corridor from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe.

Lakkotrypisnoted that the reserves discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean surpass Europe’s annual needs and said that there are more prospects in the future.

Our goal, he said, is to promote this strategic dialogue with a view to making the Eastern Mediterranean necessary for the European Union and vice versa.

On his part, the Greek Minister said that the cooperation between Israel, Cyprus and Greece creates conditions of stability for the region.

Skourletis went on saying that they discussed about the transfer of natural gas from the South Mediterranean to Greece and through Greece to Europe and that they discussed extensively the East Med pipeline project.

The Israeli Energy Minister talkedabout the importance of the electrical interconnection between Greece, Cyprus and Israel in order to upgrade the energy security of the three countries. He also referred to the strategic importance of building a natural gas pipeline from Israel, Cyprus and Greece and then from Greece to mainland Europe, the Balkans and Italy.

Steinitz also noted that Israel intends to proceed to new explorations for gas reserves in its EEZ adding that he expects new discoveries in the Aphrodite gas reserve in Cyprus, and probably in Egypt too.

Source: Famagusta Gazette