Greece Analysis Eastern Mediterranean Interconnector Pipeline (EastMed)

Akritas

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Eastern Mediterranean pipeline or simply EastMed is a planned offshore/onshore natural gas pipeline, directly connecting East Mediterranean energy resources to mainland Greece via Cyprus and Crete.
The project, currently in design, will transport natural gas from the off-shore gas reserves in the Levantine Basin into Greece, and in conjunction with the Poseidon and IGB pipelines into Italy and other European regions.

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The pipeline is being developed by IGI Poseidon S.A., a 50-50% joint venture between the Greek gas utility DEPA and the Italian gas utility Edison.
On 2 January 2020, the EastMed Pipeline accord was signed in Athens by the leaders of Greece, Cyprus, and Israel. On 19 July 2020, the Israeli government officially approved the accord, allowing the signatory countries to move forward with plans to complete the pipeline by 2025.




 
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EastMed pipeline:

The pipeline will connect the Leviathan (Israel) and Aphrodite(Cyprus) gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe. The pipeline will begin in the Levantine Basin and make landfall in Cyprus, where a compressor station will be located. From Cyprus, the pipeline will continue west for approximately 700 km, reaching depths of 3 km, and make landfall in eastern Crete. The pipeline will have a length of approximately 1,900 km and have a capacity of 10 billion cubic meters per year. Construction of the pipeline is expected to cost approximately 6 billion € (6.86 billion $). A compressor station on Crete will enable the supply of natural gas to the island. From Crete, the pipeline will continue northwest and make landfall in the eastern Peloponnese, near the village of Agios Fokas. The pipeline will cross the Peloponnese in a NW direction, cross the Gulf of Patras, and continue along western mainland Greece, ending in the Thesprotia region. From there, the proposed Poseidon pipeline will connect to Italy. In the Mediterranean Sea the average depth reaches 1,500 meters and the maximum depth is 5,267 meters.
So far, the deepest point for oil and gas extraction is in the Gulf of Mexico and is a technological pioneer, while the installation of the pipeline lasted from 1995 to 2014, ie almost 20 years.
Nord Stream 1 & 2:

The Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline reaches 1,222 kilometers while the Nord Stream 2 reaches 1,230 kilometers in the Baltic Sea where the average depth is 55 meters and the maximum depth is 459 meters. Both pipelines together will reach 110 billion cubic meters per year.
Nord Stream 1:
According to Gazprom, the costs of the onshore pipelines in Russia and Germany were around 6 billion €. The offshore section of the project cost 8.8 billion €.
Nord Stream 2:
The loan from Uniper, Wintershall Dea, OMV, Engie and Royal Dutch Shell covers 50% of the project costs of € 9.5 billion. The rest is being financed by Gazprom.


The United States is giving a final end to the construction of the EastMed pipeline, changing the data in the Eastern Mediterranean. With a non-paper of the State Department to the Greek government, with the formal recipient being the Secretary General of International Economic Relations and Extroversion of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Giannis Smyrlis, they announce the refusal of Washington to support this project. Identical non paper report information, has been sent to Israel, but also to Turkey.
End of an era
The Greek government had backed an entire mythology surrounding the EastMed pipeline which was a national narrative that included the plan to increase Greece's geopolitical influence. The pipeline would be an energy hub but also the reason for a historic alliance with Israel and Egypt. Greek foreign policy was based on the legitimacy of international law and mainly on the tripartite forms of cooperation with Cyprus, Egypt and Israel, (then the UAE), in order to show that the creation of an axis strengthens Greek politics and can limit or even isolate Turkey. And this view is disintegrating, so Greece will now have to restructure its policy in the Eastern Mediterranean, and if it wants to maintain the tripartite form, they must have a solid foundation. The constant declarations without strategic depth proved to be dead ends and were lost between Ankara and Washington.


What does the State Department officially say about the EastMed fiasco!

The State Department has taken a stand on the issue of EastMed and the non-paper with which the plan is buried, blowing up the Greece-Cyprus plans.
The representative of the US State Department, responding to the Hellenic Radio Television (ERT), said the following:
"At a time when Europe's energy security is - more than ever - a matter of national security, we are committed to deepening our regional relations and promoting clean energy technologies. The United States continues to strongly support regional efforts to strengthen and promote cooperation and regional stability, including the 3 + 1 mechanism involving the Republic of Cyprus (ROC), Greece, Israel and the United States. We remain committed to the natural connection of the energy of the Eastern Mediterranean with Europe. We are shifting our focus to electricity interconnections that can support both gas and renewable energy sources. We support projects such as the planned EuroAfrica interconnection from Egypt to Crete and mainland Greece, and the proposed EuroAsia interconnection for the connection of the electricity networks of Israel, Cyprus and Europe. Such projects will not only connect vital energy markets, but will also help prepare the region for the transition to clean energy."


The Greek news press is really outraged by this attitude of the USA. A well-known and remarkable Greek magazine that belongs to the defense press even in these critical hours is really trying to distort reality due to micropolitical expediency. At least the attitude of Flight and Space magazine in the following article shows this:

East Med Pipeline: We Decode American Non Paper for a Project Concerning Our Own Security

"The aim of the pipeline is to create a new source of supply that will benefit the European economy (except Germany, which supplies Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline). The pipeline will pass through the EEZs of Cyprus, Greece and Egypt and of course their management is their issue. But why is the US talking about project viability? U.S. banks have invested heavily in U.S. gas, but it comes from fracking (the process of extracting gas from shale deposits). They have also invested heavily in ships carrying liquefied natural gas around the world and to Europe. So financing East Med and eventually implementing it would be essentially competitive with what they have invested. But East Med is a project that will be done with the support of the European Union. And a significant part of its funding will come from the EU and the European Investment Bank. In fact, in the face of the EU's annual investment budget, its costs are minimal. The approximately 10 billion that have been budgeted (or even more due to the technical difficulty of the project), is a funny size for the European data, spread over a depth of 5 years that its construction will last. So any "objection" of the USA can not substantially affect either the financing of the construction or the laying of the route ......"

 

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Deutsche Welle says USA withdrawn its support from EastMed project. The news was made 2 days ago.


Exxonmobile and Total on the other hand halted their gas research activities with the excuse of seismic survey investigation.
 

Agha Sher

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US is realising that Turkey is the most important ally in countering Russia's ambitions in the middle east, eastern Europe and Mediterranean. Greece was sacrificed like a pawn in the blink of an eye.

This should be a wake up call for Greece. You cannot depend on anyone for your protection. First UAE abandoned you, now the US, tomorrow Egypt.
 

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Deutsche Welle says USA withdrawn its support from EastMed project. The news was made 2 days ago.


Exxonmobile and Total on the other hand halted their gas research activities with the excuse of seismic survey investigation.
I wrote in detail about this situation just above

 

Ardabas34

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I wrote in detail about this situation just above

Sorry the post seemed so long that I didnt read it throughly at first. So you rely on the EU. Capiche.
 

Foulgrim

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Sorry the post seemed so long that I didnt read it throughly at first. So you rely on the EU. Capiche.
I personally do not support the EU for EastMed, these views as i mention in the article are adopted by a specific magazine (Flight and Space) because it has a pro-government and pro-American stance. However, if i quote the articles from the Greek defense press, you will see that 95% of all of them are against the attitude of the USA while they condemn the policy of the Greek Government in this issue. Major defense type sites in Greece such as On Alert, Armyvoice, Militaire, Defense-point, SLpress, Defense and Diplomacy, Trojan Horse etc. in their articles they condemn all this fiasco with EastMed and the non-paper of the USA.
 

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US is realising that Turkey is the most important ally in countering Russia's ambitions in the middle east, eastern Europe and Mediterranean. Greece was sacrificed like a pawn in the blink of an eye.

This should be a wake up call for Greece. You cannot depend on anyone for your protection. First UAE abandoned you, now the US, tomorrow Egypt.
And KSA in February as well*

This is the differemce between Soft power alone and Soft power that is supported by HARD POWER when needed

Regardless though, greek territorial claims were pretty ridiculous so I dont think the US was able to bring counter-arguments during negotiations with Turkey
 

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Deutsche Welle says USA withdrawn its support from EastMed project. The news was made 2 days ago.
There is official statement of the US Embassy, the the USA remain committed to physically interconnecting East Med energy to Europe.

 

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Exxonmobile and Total on the other hand halted their gas research activities with the excuse of seismic survey investigation.
Total is currently conducting studies to assess the level of pollutant emissions from the two blocks of Crete based on its central strategy of reducing its environmental footprint.
Also the consortium submitted last Friday to the Hellenic Hydrocarbon Resources Management S.A (EDEY) a revised plan for conducting seismic surveys.

 

Ravenman

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They can discuss and sign agreements till the day of judgement. The pipe will not come without Turkey's involvement. End of discussion. Every country is aware of this, even the US.
 

Akritas

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They can discuss and sign agreements till the day of judgement. The pipe will not come without Turkey's involvement. End of discussion. Every country is aware of this, even the US.
The pipeline is now more likely to pass through Egypt, package with the electrical interconnection.(EuroAfrica Interconnector project)
 

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There is official statement of the US Embassy, the the USA remain committed to physically interconnecting East Med energy to Europe.

The official position of the State Department is known, but this does not negate the existence of non-paper. The fact that the State Department entered the process to justify its stance on non-paper shows two things.
1) This document is real and extremely negative for Greece
2) All Greek news sites rightly criticized the Greek Government and the US for this EastMed pipeline fiasco.








The non-paper document in international diplomacy but also in everyday communication is a kind of document that, according to the protocol, is used as an aid and never as an official announcement. In other words, it is the exact opposite of what we call "reminder" or "memorandum". The non-paper has the force of a document that works in parallel with the official position or information within the corresponding institutional process. In essence, this is a note that seeks to be included in the agenda and a relevant argument or which for many different reasons can not or should not be announced as it is. In the history of politics and diplomacy, non-paper documents have recorded their own important chapters. With the basic feature that no natural person officially takes responsibility for their writing!
And Israel officially says it has no nuclear weapons.
Do you believe them? I and i think the whole planet does not believe them.

US Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt responded via Twitter to revelations about a US decision not to support the EastMed gas pipeline, which will connect Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Italy to the rest of Europe. .
He emphasized that the allegations in Washington's decision were baseless. The issue, he says, is the commercial feasibility of the project. That is why it is said that "we are very excited about the regional electricity interconnection projects".
It refers to the electrical interconnections Euro-Asia Interconnector and Euro-Africa Interconnector that concern: the first Israel, Cyprus and Greece and the second Greece and Egypt. In the non-paper, the US seems to support the two power projects I mentioned above, but not the EastMed pipeline. The informal United States document, which expresses Washington's non-support for the construction of the EastMed pipeline, contains three reasons why the Americans do not support the project:
1) The protection of the environment, the transition to energy and the shift to renewable sources.
2) The lack of economic and commercial viability
3) The creation of tensions in the region.


 
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The French Ambassador to Greece Patrick Maisonnave, on the occasion of assuming the French presidency of the European Council, said the following:
"EastMed remains a project of interest, but today economic conditions favor the search for other ways of supplying energy and especially electricity interconnection or liquefied natural gas. It is not the intention of East Med to become a strategic or political affair, but to look only at the facts which show that it makes more sense financially to promote other projects."
 

HaZZan

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The French and the Greeks don't have any logic they want to squeeze Turkiey to the corner they think Turkiey this great country that fought naval battles that reached the Caribbean will allow this.
 

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US Congress members Gus Bilirakis and Nicole Malliotakis sent a sternly worded letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently, objecting to a decision by the administration of President Joe Biden to withdraw support for the EastMed pipeline, a joint project by Greece, Cyprus and Israel that would supply natural gas to the European Union.

By undermining the project, the administration is undercutting three of our strongest allies in the region: Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, as well as the European Union’s hopes for energy independence and economic prosperity,” their announcement of the letter on Monday said, stressing the current energy crisis in Europe.

The Biden administration’s actions in this matter are particularly objectionable and hypocritical in light of its tacit approval of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline, which will only deepen Europe’s energy dependence on a volatile adversary,”


 
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Akritas

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Lmaooooo Greek congress members 🤣
Everyone as they can, e.g. Turkey pays American lobbyists and politicians to promote its policy.


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