Under the headline, A natural gas pipeline from the motherland to the child, Turkish daily Milliyet reported that Turkish Cypriot ‘energy minister’ Hasan Tacoy officially announced at the ‘First Eastern Mediterranean International Energy Symposium’ that consultations were underway for such a project.

According to the paper the project concerns a bidirectional natural gas pipeline between Turkey and the north with the Greek Cypriot side trying to block the project.

Tacoy reportedly said that the pipeline could transfer gas from Turkey to the north in 2025.

Director of the Bogazici University’s Energy Policy Research Centre Dr Gurkan Kumbaroglu said that the around 80-kilometre natural gas pipeline could run in parallel to the one carrying water to the north which was inaugurated in 2015. He also suggested that the pipeline could be bidirectional so that natural gas could flow from Turkey to the north but also so that natural gas extracted from the eastern Mediterranean could be sent to Turkey, and from there to Europe.

The paper also reported that at the conference in question, organised by the Ankara-based Middle East Technical University’s campus in the north, experts from the US, France, Israel and Azerbaijan took part as well as organisations such as the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Centre but some participants had to withdraw following warnings from the Greek Cypriot side that they would be committing a crime if they went to the occupied areas.

Meanwhile, Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said Turkey would carry out five oil and gas drillings in 2020.

Briefing the Turkish parliament’s budget committee, Donmez said that the country’s final goal would be to be in a position to carry out deep sea drilling without services from foreign companies.

Source: Cyprus Mail