Egypt has further cemented its position as the Eastern Mediterranean’s primary energy hub following a new agreement involving ExxonMobil, QatarEnergy and Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.

The ExxonMobil-QatarEnergy consortium becomes the third major operator to pursue commercialisation of Cypriot offshore gas discoveries through Egypt’s existing gas processing and LNG export infrastructure.

An memorandum of understanding (MOU) in this regard was signed on Wednesday by the Ministry, QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil to study the potential for connecting their gas discoveries in Cyprus to Egypt’s existing gas processing infrastructure for export to Europe.

The ExxonMobil-QatarEnergy consortium currently holds exploration rights for offshore Block 10 in Cyprus, which contains the Glaucus gas discovery announced in February 2019. The discovery is estimated to contain between 5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and 8 tcf of gas in place.

In December 2021, the consortium also secured rights to the adjacent offshore Block 5.

The Ministry said in a related statement that the MOU covers studying the utilisation of Egypt's liquefaction and re-export infrastructure to accelerate the development of Cypriot gas discoveries, lower production costs and boost regional energy integration in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Egypt has already signed similar arrangements with Chevron-led consortium for the Aphrodite gas field, and a consortium led by TotalEnergies and Eni for the Cronos gas field in offshore Cyprus.

(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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