Cypriot natural gas could start flowing to Europe as early as the spring of 2028, Cyprus Minister for Energy Michalis Damianos said in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press. The promise is dressed up as energy independence and price stability. The machinery underneath is simpler: pipelines, private consortia, EU cash, and households told to pay for the privilege.
Gas for Europe, costs for everyone else
Damianos said European consumers can expect natural gas from an undersea field off Cyprus to help meet their energy needs as soon as March 2028. He said the gas now being developed would help make Europe more energy independent and stabilise prices. That’s the sales pitch from the top. Down below, the bill keeps moving.
He also referred to the latest developments in Cyprus’s electricity interconnection with Greece and the entry of the French company Meridiam, following the sustained interest shown by French President Emmanuel Macron. The project, the Great Seas Interconnector, would connect Europe’s electricity grid with that of Cyprus and, eventually, Israel. Damianos said it would end the energy isolation of Cyprus and Israel and would be a key building block of the IMEC Initiative, a new energy and trade route to the Gulf and India that the European Union is pursuing.
The language is grand. The costs are not. The project has become mired in bureaucratic procedures because its actual cost exceeds the original estimate of $2.2bn (€1.91bn). A European Investment Bank report, expected to be published in the coming months, will provide clarity on its price tag. Damianos said Cypriot energy consumers would have to cover up to 63% of the cost of building the cable under the current agreement, which would mean a significant increase in electricity prices. Additional private investment is being sought to offset that burden, while the possibility of further EU funding is also being examined. The EU has already committed €658 million ($760 million) to the project.
Private capital, public burden
Damianos said the Eastern Mediterranean is rapidly emerging as an alternative source of energy for European countries as Russia’s war in Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East force the continent to seek new supplies. He said partners TotalEnergies of France and Italy’s Eni took the final investment decision last month to move ahead with developing the Cronos gas field off Cyprus’s southern coast. He said the project will mark the first time that gas from Eastern Mediterranean fields feeds European markets.
According to the Eni-TotalEnergies consortium’s timetable, work to build a pipeline from Cronos to existing infrastructure at Egypt’s giant Zohr gas field, 105 kilometres away, will start later this year and last up to 18 months. Once completed, the gas will be transported to the processing plant at Damietta on Egypt’s northern coast, where it will be liquefied for shipment to Europe. Sending gas from Cronos to Egypt for processing was described as the most economically viable option, at a cost of around $2bn (€1.73bn), or half the estimated cost of developing other gas fields in Cypriot waters because of its proximity to existing infrastructure.
The agreement provides that all of the more than 3 trillion cubic feet (84.9 billion cubic metres) of gas from Cronos will go to Europe, though it includes a clause allowing about one-fifth of that volume to be used to cover part of Egypt’s domestic energy needs. So the route is Europe first, with a side order of domestic relief where the contract allows it.
Damianos said: “It is a relatively small reserve. Our revenues as a country will not be huge, so its importance does not lie in the money, but in the fact that we are starting to become producers and to bring our first natural gas on stream.”
The corporate map of the Mediterranean
Cronos is one of six gas fields discovered so far within Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone, off its southern coast. Two of them, Glafcos and Pegasus, have combined estimated reserves of 6.9 trillion cubic feet (195 billion cubic metres). ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy, which have been licensed to exploit these fields, say they expect gas from Glafcos and Pegasus to start flowing by 2033. Damianos said: “What we can say is that Exxon is the kind of company that keeps to schedules and sometimes even delivers earlier.”
The energy minister said ExxonMobil plans to expand its exploration activities off Cyprus and is expected to obtain an additional licence to search for hydrocarbons. Another gas field, Aphrodite, the first to be discovered off Cyprus about 15 years ago, holds estimated reserves of 5.6 trillion cubic feet (158 billion cubic metres). Damianos said the final investment decision by the Chevron-led consortium on developing Aphrodite is expected in the summer of 2027. Under the agreement with Chevron, a pipeline will link the field directly to facilities in Egypt in order to cover that country’s domestic energy needs. Part of Aphrodite lies in Israeli waters, and there is hope that an arbitrator will decide what share Israel is entitled to by next month.
The pattern is hard to miss. Fields are discovered, licensed, parceled out, and tied into infrastructure that serves corporate schedules and state priorities. Brussels calls it strategy. The companies call it investment. Ordinary people get the prices, the delays, and the infrastructure debt.
Damianos also hailed the entry of French investment company Meridiam as a financier of the Great Seas Interconnector project. He said: “This is a very important project for Europe because it links Cyprus, which is isolated, with the European grid. And the idea is to then go on and connect with Israel.” The grid expands. The costs stay local. The profits travel upward, as usual.