Cyprus Energy Corridor

Year 2017, Issue: 4, 7 - 26, 30.08.2017

Necdet Karakurt , Oğuzhan Akyener

Abstract

The initial Cyprus Energy Corridor idea was developed and introduced by Israel and its partners in crime: the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA). This version of the corridor was exaggerated over the proposed Eastern Mediterranean (EastMed) Pipeline, which would route East Mediterranean gas reserves to Europe (EU) over Cyprus and Greece. It would apparently have the ability to connect with the Iran-Iraq-Syria Pipeline that will be safeguarded by a Kurdish Corridor that seems to be one of the main reasons behind the Syrian and Iraqi international conflicts in the region. If the plan was able to be succeeded, EU somehow would be able to find an alternative to Russian gas and secure its energy demands by East Mediterranean and Middle East gas over a corridor, where Anglo-Saxon driven domination occurs.

The idea suits well to the UK and USA’s ambitions in the Middle East for controlling the Muslim majority populace by supporting a powerful (against Muslims but loyal to the West) Kurdish state that will eventually start swallowing or weakening the surrounding states. Jewish on the other hand, will have the upper hand in the region since Muslims will have to struggle with Kurds that are backed by the West. They will also control and have all the advantages of being the main supplier for EU through this new energy corridor.

Perhaps, they will eventually reach the dream of the “Great Israel” in the future. This whole scenario was nested over two energy routes. The first one covers the Middle East from Iran to Mediterranean, which suggests carrying Iranian and Iraqi gas over Syria. The second one was proposed over the Eastern Mediterranean from Egypt to Israel and to Cyprus, Greece and EU. Both pipelines had to pass feasibility requirements to be placed in action. Iranian gas was there for sure and Iraq also had some gas potential, therefore the first pipeline seems feasible from the sight of reserves. By the way, from the commercial sights, it would not be easy to transport Iranian gas through that route to EU. The second pipeline was requiring new discoveries and large enough reserves to attract investors or to find funding from international consortiums.

The current situation or the balances in the region clearly suggests that the speculative targets are highly unlikely reachable as there are many commercial, political, technical milestones and international agreements still to be handled.

Now, from the commercial and resource potential sights, Turkey stands out as seems to be the only route for such a corridor. And only Israel’s and Cyprus’s gas is estimated to be able to be transported to EU markets via pipelines. And the export volume is around 10 bcma.

The study aims to cover the evaluation of all sights of the Cyprus Energy Corridor in accordance with, such as the commercial constraints, the due basins’ hydrocarbon potentials, production profiles and etc.

Keywords

Cyprus, Cyprus Energy Corridor

References

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