Energy News Beat Publishers Note: These pipelines have a huge impact on the Mediterranean Natural Gas market. This will help some of the EU members to not rely on the Russian Nordstream 2 Pipeline.
Greek-Italian gas joint venture IGI Poseidon said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement with the Israel Natural Gas Lines Company to cooperate on building facilities to connect Israel to a planned gas pipeline in the eastern Mediterranean.
Greece, Cyprus and Israel last year signed a deal to build the Eastmed gas pipeline, which has been in the planning stage for several years and seeks to transport gas from offshore Israel and Cyprus to Greece and on to Italy to help Europe diversify its energy resources. IGI Poseidon, a joint venture between Greece’s state-owned gas utility DEPA and Italy’s Edison, said the agreement with the Israeli company, which updates a 2019 memorandum of understanding, aims to connect the Eastmed project to the Israeli transmission system and facilitate gas flows from the eastern Mediterranean to Italy and Europe, via Cyprus.
The two parties will cooperate on planning and licensing the necessary facilities in Israel for the Eastmed, IGI Poseidon said in a statement.
State-owned Israel Natural Gas Lines said the connection will allow gas to flow from all the Israeli gas fields.
Greece, Cyprus and Israel aim to reach a final investment decision on the Eastmed by 2022 and have the 6-billion-euro ($7.14 billion) pipeline completed by 2025. ($1 = 0.8406 euros)
