An energy union - IN CYPRUS / CYPRUS WEEKLY

October 22, 2016
By Charles Ellinas

Israel and Turkey agreed last week to open discussions and examine building a gas pipeline to pump Israeli gas from Leviathan to Turkey and from there to Europe.

The meeting last week between Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz and Turkish Energy Minister Berat Albayrak in Istanbul, was the highest-level official meeting since the two countries normalised ties in June. The process to normalise relations was strongly backed by the US.

The crisis between the two countries erupted after Israel stormed a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship, the Mavi-Marmara, in 2010. Until that time, Turkey had been Israel’s key ally in the Muslim world.

In June this year the two countries finally agreed to normalise their relationship, with the return of their Ambassadors to their posts later in the year.

Greece and FYROM to study gas interconnector option - NATURAL GAS WORLD

October 21st, 2016, 3:20pm, by Kama Mustafayeva 

Greece gas grid operator DESFA and state-owned Former Yugoslav Republic's Macedonian Energy Resources (FYR MER) signed a memorandum of understanding to build a 160-km interconnector linking Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on October 17 in the capital Skopje.

The companies will prepare feasibility study for the line that starts in Nea Mesimvria in northern Greece and ends in Stip. The MoU was signed by DESFA CEO Sotiris Nikas and his counterpart at FYR MER, Krste Miladinov.

The line will connect FYROM to the TransAdriatic pipeline (TAP) now being built, and other prospective nearby gas corridors such as Turkish Stream. It will also provide the Former Yugoslav Republic with direct LNG supply from Greece’s terminal in Revithoussa off Athens, Miladinov said at the signing ceremony.

Israel to examine building GTL plant - NATURAL GAS WORLD

October 20th, 2016, 12:10pm, by Ya'acov Zalel

Israel's energy ministry is exploring the option of building a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Israel. The ministry said that it will assist entrepreneurs to explore that option and consider what the consequences would be for the country's energy sector.

Two years ago the ministry published a request for information for GTL in order to reduce dependence on oil in transport. In 2011 the government set a target of reducing oil consumption by 60% by 2025.

"We are working towards widening the Israeli natural gas market," the ministry director general, Sahul Meridor said in a statement. "Innovative technology of liquid fuel production from natural gas will enable the use of gas in other sectors of the economy and to increase demand for natural gas."

Turkish Stream: The Cost of Russia’s Stubbornness - CARNEGIE MOSCOW CENTER

20.10.2016,
By Mikhail Krutikhin

Unlike Russian gas pumped via Ukraine and Germany, that flowing through Turkey will face tough competition from Azerbaijani, Iranian, Iraqi, and possibly even Turkmen and Israeli gas. Gazprom’s rivals won’t need to ship their gas as far, and they will have much lower pipeline construction costs. The gas market in southeastern Europe is not that big and doesn’t have a lot of room for growth.

Not so long ago, Turkey was on the Kremlin’s list of adversaries following the NATO member’s shooting down of a Russian fighter jet over the Syria-Turkey border. Now Russia is effectively relinquishing control over its southward gas export to Turkey. This is the extent to which the Kremlin is prepared to go to punish disobedient Ukraine—but it will come at a cost to Russia.

Floating LNG terminal to ease energy supply in Turkey’s industrial base - DAILY SABAH

20.10.2016

The floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal off of the Yalova province coast in Turkey's Marmara region is expected to ease the energy supply for the region, which hosts over a quarter of the country's population and industry.

According to an article in Turkish business daily Dünya, a company named Maks Enerji has applied to the Energy Market Regulatory Board (EMRB) to obtain a license to operate a Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) that will be located on the southern shores of the Gulf of Izmit in the district of Altınova.

Subsea 7 awarded contract offshore Egypt Luxembourg - SUBSEA 7

20 October 2016

Subsea 7 S.A. (Oslo Børs: SUBC, ADR: SUBCY) today announced the award of a substantial contract, offshore Egypt, by Pharaonic Petroleum Company to be executed at water depths of over 900 metres in the Atoll field. Subsea 7 defines a substantial contract as being between USD 150 million and USD 300 million. 

The contract scope includes the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of more than 40 kilometres of rigid pipelines and associated structures for the new Atoll field, tying into the existing Taurt field at a water depth of 100 metres. A 105 kilometre umbilical will also be installed linking the Atoll field to shore.

Libya resumes output from Waha oilfield - ECOFIN AGENCY

Wednesday, 19 October 2016 - 09:23, by Anita Fatunji

(Ecofin Agency) - Libya has recommenced production from the Waha oil field bringing the country’s total production to 580,000 barrels per day, a senior Libyan oil official revealed.

According to the official, oil output from the field is being redirected to the Ras Lanuf export terminal rather than the usual Es Sider port due to limited storage.The Waha field, which is operated by the Waha Oil Company, is one of the key contributors for the major Es Sider export grade. It is the first Es Sider field to resume operation, producing 50,000 bpd as at Tuesday.

Output from the field was around 330,000 bpd before the war in 2011, but some infrastructure had been damaged and capacity was reduced.The Es Sider port currently has only a storage capacity of 1.2 million barrels compared to the 5 million barrels level before the war. The Es Sider grade will therefore be divided between Ras Lanuf and Es Sider as output increases.

Gas pipeline hope heals rupture in Israel-Turkey ties - BBC

TUR Energy Minister Berat Albayrak (R) and ISR Energy Minister
Yuval Steinitz (L) meet at 23rd World Energy Congress (AFP)

By Selin Girit, BBC News, Istanbul, 19 October 2016

Israel is looking to transfer natural gas from its offshore fields to markets as far away as Europe

All the painstaking efforts aimed at mending Turkish-Israeli relations are finally paying off, six years after they broke off in acrimony.

Last week, Yuval Steinitz became the first Israeli minister to visit Turkey since 2010, for talks with his Turkish counterpart, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak.

The visit signalled a significant turning-point in relations as they agreed to deepen co-operation and discussed the possibility of building a natural gas pipeline from Israel to Turkey.

Delek and Noble to Be Barred From New Israeli Gas-drilling Tender - HAARETZ

After a bruising battle over the gas framework agreement and competition issues, the government is now determined to inject more competition into the industry.
Avi Bar-Eli Oct 19, 2016 12:27 AM

Delek Group and Noble Energy – the two biggest players in Israel’s gas industry – will be barred from bidding in the government tender for new exploration sites scheduled for next month, Energy Ministry officials have decided.

The decision means that the two companies, which are the biggest partners in the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields, will not be able to compete for licenses for 24 blocs due to be auctioned by the government in a process that gets underway November 15.

The tender marks the first time in four-and-a-half years that Israel is opening up new licenses for exploration, with hopes of boosting output in the coming years and turning the country into a major energy exporter. Israel has about 900 billion cubic meters of gas reserves, a number that Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz says could grow to 2,200 BCM, enabling Israel to export to markets such as Turkey and Europe.

How Eni Bet Big and Won Big on Natural Gas off Egypt - NEW YORK TIMES

Eni’s chief executive, Claudio Descalzi

By STANLEY REED OCT. 19, 2016

SAN DONATO MILANESE, Italy — A drilling ship working about 120 miles off the Egyptian coast for Eni, the Italian oil company based here, bored into a giant trove of natural gas in July 2015 that turned out to be the largest discovery ever in the Mediterranean Sea and by far the largest by the global petroleum industry that year.

The find, called Zohr, meaning “noon” in Arabic, was the source of enormous relief and even elation at Eni, which had risked $70 million to drill a well in an area where Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch company, had previously drilled 10 without success.

Eni’s chief executive, Claudio Descalzi, let the drilling go ahead — despite serious misgivings inside the company — because some of his geologists were convinced that Shell and other rivals might have missed something big.

“It was a very emotional moment,” said Mr. Descalzi. “We tried to look outside the box.”

Eni completes drilling 6th well in Zohr deepwater - DAILY NEWS EGYPT

Saipem 10000 drillship  drilled Zohr discovery well & development wells

Production tests confirmed reserves increase to more than 30tn cubic feet of gas, says source
Mohamed Adel, 18.10.2016

The Italian company Eni completed drilling operations in the sixth well in Zohr gas field in the deepwater offshore of the Mediterranean Sea as production tests on its fifth well confirmed that reserves increased to 30tn cubic feet of gas.

An official at Eni told Daily News Egypt that the sixth well’s production tests will start next week and will take roughly 10 days.

He added that drilling operations, establishing a gas treatment plant, and processing marine pipelines to connect them to the Shorouk concession area are currently being implemented, according to the project’s development plan.

TANAP Pipeline Gas Transportation Capacity Fully Contracted - SPUTNIK NEWS

updated 13:29 18.10.2016

Gas for transportation via the TANAP pipeline has already been contracted, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev told Sputnik.

The Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) will not face competition from other regional energy projects as gas for transportation via the pipeline has already been contracted, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev told Sputnik. 

"The volumes of gas that will be transported in the first stage along the entire length of the project, have already been contracted, they have already been sold. We have signed contracts for the increase in production, which will start in 2018 and should reach its peak in 2020-2021. Therefore, no other regional energy projects can compete with it, because we have already sold this gas," the president told Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency’s Director General Dmitry Kiselev in an interview.

TANAP is a major part of the Southern Gas Corridor that will connect the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan with Europe. The corridor will run from Azerbaijan to Turkey, through Greece, Albania, and deep under the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy.

Egypt- BP produces 650m cubic feet from Taurus and Libra fields - MENAFN / DAILY NEWS EGYPT

17/10/2016 

(MENAFN - Daily News Egypt) BP signed an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell to process 650m cubic feet of gas, produced from its North Alexandria project, at Shell's Borollos station for 0.3 per million feet.

A senior source in the petroleum sector told Daily News Egypt that the process of linking the North Alexandria project to the station in Borollos will begin in the coming period.

He noted that Borollos gas treatment plant has an estimated capacity of about 1.1bn cubic feet per day. The station currently processes 650m cubic feet per day.

The North Alexandria project involves the development of five fields, starting with Taurus and Libra fields by linking them to the onshore processing facilities in Borollos in the third quarter of 2017. The company has completed 52% of operations in Taurus and Libra fields.

The East Mediterranean gas revolution - ABO

Oct, 17 2016
Nicoló Sartori

The recent discoveries give the region an unprecedented opportunity to foster cooperation on energy and its exports, as well as to reach for diplomatic ways to handle the region's conflicts

The gas discoveries in the East Mediterranean have generated an outburst of enthusiasm, fostering an image of the region as a global future gas producer. Potential export trajectories for the East Mediterranean resources include a range of options from inter-regional gas trade with Turkey and Egypt to exporting gas to the EU, whose current priority is to diversify its gas suppliers. However, encouraging stability and political cooperation among the countries of East Mediterranean is a primary goal for regional stakeholders (EU included), given the tense relations between virtually all future gas producer and transit countries in the area.

Bulgarian and Greek pipeline aims to cut gas dependency on Russia - FINANCIAL TIMES

Small but important gas pipeline eases dependency on Russia17.10.2016, Kerin Hope

Moves to increase energy sector competition, boost cross-border supplies and decrease the region’s and Europe’s dependency on Russia for natural gas are afoot in the Balkans.

An important part of the plan is the construction of a short but significant cross-border pipeline, the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (ICGB), due to start next year.

The 180km reverse-flow pipeline will be able to pump gas in either direction between Komotini, in Greece’s northeastern province of Thrace, and Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria.

Egypt: Mostorod refinery to be completed in 2017: ERC - ECOFIN AGENCY

Monday, 17 October 2016 - 15:04
By Anita Fatunji

(Ecofin Agency) - The Egyptian Refining Company (ERC) has announced plans to conclude its refining project in Mostorod within the Q1 of 2017, as part of moves to address the supply gaps in the petroleum derivatives market.

According to the company’s Managing Director, Mohamed Saad, 90% of the project has been executed and the overall investments in the project have reached $3.7b, with the completion of all necessary procurement of materials and services. He added that the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) owns 24% of the venture.

Why difficult to connect Israel to Southern Gas Corridor? - TREND NEWS AGENCY

17 October 2016 11:34 (UTC+04:00), Baku, Azerbaijan, Leman Zeynalova

The practicalities and specifically, the infrastructure needs of connecting Israeli gas to the Southern Gas Corridor will make it difficult to accomplish, Agnia Grigas, energy and political risks expert, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Trend Oct.17.

Earlier, Cemil Ertem, advisor to the Turkish president, said that Turkey wants to connect Israeli gas supplies to the Southern Gas Corridor project.

“First, there are legal and legislative restrictions on Israel’s gas exports with about half of the gas stipulated for Israel’s domestic consumption,” said Grigas.

“More importantly, laying a pipeline to connect to the Southern Gas Corridor or any other pipeline system will be difficult in the unstable and conflict-prone environment of the Middle East,” she said. “Terrorist attacks can be carried out on and from Egyptian territory, Gaza Strip, and Lebanon making a land route and even a water route problematic.”

Al-Nadhouri: We’ll put Libyan oil under Egypt’s control - LIBYAPROSPECT

Oct 16, 2016, Al-Youm7, LIBYAPROSPECT – London

The Libyan military chief of staff affiliated to the House of Representatives (HoR), General Abdul-Razek Al-Nadhouri, said that the head of the eastern Libyan National Oil Corporation would be in Cairo on Saturday.

During his visit to Cairo, Al-Nadhouri told the Egyptian newspaper “Al-Youm 7”, who interviewed him, which LIBYAPROSPECT is translating for its readers, that the Libyan oil will be under Egypt’s control. He added that there would be daily shipments of Libyan oil to Egypt and “we will listen to the Egyptians and will send them the oil implements.”

Al-Nadhouri said that this might be seen as a subordination and surrender but “if this how our enemies think, so we are proud of surrendering ourselves to Egypt.”

He also expressed that “if the world says that Egypt is the mother of the world, we say that “Egypt is our mother” because she supported us when no one supported us.

Talk of Russian gas pipeline via Greece revived - KATHIMERINI

16.10.2016 14:53

The prospect of a Russian natural gas pipeline passing through Greece is being discussed again in light of a key deal signed between Moscow and Ankara in Istanbul last Monday.

In a sign of warming relations between Ankara and Moscow, that were seriously tested after the Turks shot down a Russian jet near the Syrian border last November, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin signed an agreement for the construction of a pipeline under the Black Sea all the way to the Greek-Turkish border.

Turkish Stream is an alternative to the South Stream project (Russia-Bulgaria-Serbia-Hungary-Austria-Italy) which was abandoned last year in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis and a change of heart in Sofia.

Turkey-Russia ties and the impact on Cyprus - IN CYPRUS / CYPRUS WEEKLY

October 16, 2016
Charles Ellinas

The 23rd World Energy Congress was held in Istanbul between October 9 and 13. There was heavy participation from world political and industry leaders, attracting more than 10,000 top world experts in the field of energy.

Meetings around the Congress resulted in progress on a number of areas of direct or indirect importance to Cyprus. These included TurkStream, gas price discounts by Russia to Turkey and political and defence agreements between Russia and Turkey. I address these in this article and, where appropriate, draw on their impact on Cyprus.