East Med Flexes Muscles: Total, Tamar, LNG to Egypt

The East Mediterranean flexed its muscles on Wednesday, with two long-waited deals that build on the momentum created over the last months.  

Cyprus signed a deal for further exploration work for Block 11 with Total E&P Cyprus on Wednesday, while Delek Group and Avner Oil Exploration clinched an agreement for the export of natural gas from the Tamar Project to Egypt. 

‘The Minister of Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Mr Yiorgos Lakkotrypis, and the General Manager of Total E&P Cyprus B.V., Mr Jean-Luc Porcheron, signed today, Wednesday 18th of March 2015, an agreement regarding further exploration works in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus, which Total will undertake in order to further assess the prospectivity of Exploration Block 11’ reads a note released by Cyprus’ government.

A few hours before, on Wednesday, the Tamar Project partners signed a contract for the export of gas to Dolphinus Holdings Limited.

‘The volume of natural gas that will be exported to the Buyer under the contract is expected to be based on the volume of surplus gas available to the Tamar Partners from the Tamar Project, on an interruptible basis, over a period of 7 years. The contract provides that the Tamar Partners will offer to supply the Buyer a minimum cumulative volume of 5 BCM’ Delek Group wrote on Wednesday. 

According to the contract, Dolphinus will then transport gas from Ashkelon to Egypt via the existing pipeline operated by the East Mediterranean Gas Company. 

The Tamar Partners started negotiations with Dolphinus Holdings to export gas produced in Israel to Egypt in October.

Also on Tuesday, Egypt finalised a deal with Gazprom to import 35 LNG cargoes.