Italian Major Eyes Greek Gas Market
The government of Greece, particularly through its Ministry of Energy headed by Ioannis Maniatis, is forging closer ties with Italy's corporate energy market by concentrating on the interest expressed by Edison, which has unveiled its intentions as of late.
More specifically, in the sidelines of a high-level meeting in Milan of the Council of Ministers for Energy hosted by the Presidency of the Council of the European Union headed by Italy, Edison's executives relayed the following to the Greek counterparts:
The company already enjoys a presence in Greece through its joint venture named Elpedison with the Greek oil company (ELPE), and own two gas-fired plants with an 820 MW capacity. Having this strong base for expanding businesses in the country, Edison wishes to partake in the offshore exploration rounds in Greece and has already been awarded a license to conduct research in the West Patras Gulf, which is said to contain around 80 million barrels of oil and gas sources. They will undertake the exploration drills together with ELPE and Petroceltic with a likely commencement of mid-2015.
Furthermore the CEO of the Italian company Bruno Lescoeur stated that "our company will take part in the new bid round for offshore hydrocarbon reserves in Greece and also is interested in participating in the interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) and Interconnector Greece-Italy (IGI)"
He added that “these natural gas infrastructures will provide to Italy, Greece and the Balkans considerable access to the vast reserves of the East Mediterranean and it is a strategic opportunity for all countries involved to open up faster and more competitive the so-called Southern Corridor."
Thus, a wider picture emerges where Edison is not just solemnly interested in trading gas across different states in the Balkans having Greece as a hub, but also to become an important force in transportation, having in mind the Greek and Cypriot East Med Pipeline plan, a project which according to the Greek gas company DEPA, is feasible to be able to transfer some 8 bcm of the commodity from offshore Cyprus and Israel to Italy through Greece with a cost of $7.5 billion USD. For the moment no Greek corporation has the necessary funds for such an endeavor and the involvement of Edison assists the explanding prospects of such a technically challenged project.
On the other hand, it is of outmost importance to first fully appraise the exact amounts offshore Cyprus in future explorations projects being conducted by the ENI/KOGAS venture and the one by Total. Israel has already allocated amounts to the Jordanian market without having fully decided to withhold the rest of its reserves for the EU and Balkan regions. That is why Edison has pointed out that it will back up DEPA's plans to assess the viability of the East Med, carefully not allocating any project funds yet in this investment that is a subject of a multitude of political and economic variables, despite being selected as a Project of Common Interest (PCI) by the EU and being supported at least in theory by Greek and neighboring governments.