Financial Mirror: Cyprus - Oil, Gas and Diplomacy

Cairo’s Ambassador Hussein Abdelkarim Tantawy Mubarak presented his credentials, a day after President Anastasiades and Abdel Fattah El Sisi had a telephone conversation to discuss energy cooperation, despite the recent discovery of an enormous offshore gasfield in Egyptian waters, the biggest in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Some had feared that Italian ENI’s discovery of 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf) at the Zohr field, which is in close proximity to the border of Cyprus’ offshore Block 11, currently licensed to French oil giant Total, would upset negotiations to sell Cyprus gas to Europe via BG’s plant in Egypt. 
Egyptian officials were quick to reiterate their good relations with Cyprus and that the two countries would maintain negotiations for future gas sales, not expected before 2018 or 2020. 

The discovery within the Egyptian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) also sent shivers down the backs of the Israelis that had so far maintained the lead for the biggest discovery at the Leviathan gasfield, as the new supply could make future Israeli gas exports redundant as well. 

But Egypt does not want to burn its bridges with its neighbours, at least not within the political turmoil and Islamic extremism that has swept across the Middle East.

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