Eni has signed an agreement with Egypt And Cyprus To bring more Gas in Europemove that will help to face the critical issues that arose after the cooling of relations with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. Just a few years ago, Russian gas covered around 40% of the European needs, while since 2023 the figure dropped to 8%.
The signatures on the agreements were placed by the Eni CEO Claudio Descalziby the Egyptian Minister of Egypt Karim Badawi and the Minister of Energy of Cyprus Georgios Papanastasiou.
Agreement to increase European stocks
The extracted gas comes from Chronosan important offshore deposit discovered in 2022 off the coast of Cyprus. Cronos is located about 160 kilometers away from the southern coasts of Cyprus, at 2,287 meters deep and, according to estimates, it seems that it can provide up to 85 billion cubic meters of gas. To give an idea, Italy consumes annually around 60 billion cubic meters of gas.
Cyprus, a Member State of the European Union, is part of the agreement because the deposit is found in what the professionals call “Block 6“, That is, one of the thirteen portions of the Cypriot sea, licensed to oil companies in order to do perforations.
Egypt is part of the agreement because, once extracted and treated on an oil platform, the gas will come liquefy in the Egyptian Damietta plant. Finally, transport by ship to Europe will take place.
The war in Ukraine, and the subsequent diplomatic crisis between the EU states and Russia, pushed the old continent to import much more liquefied gas compared to the past, diversifying the sources of supply.
There Norway He took the place of Russia as the first supplier country and greater supplies also came from United Stateswhich have provided liquefied natural gas, much more expensive than the one transported via Gasdotto.
The three between Eni, Cyprus and Egypt was favored by investments of Eni in the two countries. Eni has been present in Egypt since 1954 and is the main gas manufacturerwith a production of about 280,000 barrels of oil equivalent to the day in 2024. Eni operates in Egypt through its 100% IEOC subsidiary and holds a 50% share in the Damietta GNL plant. In Cyprus Eni has been present since 2013.
The three agreement is also important because the European Commission is evaluating the possibility of extending the obligation for Member States to fill the stocks of gas up to 90% of the capacity by 1 November of each year.
In the meantime, the EU is considering temporarily imposing a roof at the price of the gas to avoid putting families and businesses in crisis. The hypothesis raised the criticisms of the operators.
Italy and Egypt still partner
For strategic reasons, the Meloni government has always refused to reduce commercial partnerships with Egypt, asked loudly by humanitarian associations, following the murder of the Italian researcher Giulio Regeni and the arrest of Patrick Zaki.
Agreement between Eni and Kkr
To stay on the subject, Eni e KKR (International Private Equity Operator) have signed an agreement to increase KKR’s participation in Enilive through a further purchase of Eniilive actions from Eni. The purchase will be 5% of the share capital of Enilivethrough an additional investment of 587.5 million euros.
The investment will lead KKR to hold a total participation equal to 30% of the share capital of Enilive by optimizing the structure of Eni’s capital which will continue to maintain its consolidation and control.
