Map of the subsea cable for Electrical Interconnection between Greece and Egypt. Copelouzos.
The next step in the proposal will be submitting the list by the European Commission to the European Parliament and Council which has two months to decide whether to accept or reject it to the list. This two-month period may be extended by an additional two months upon their request.
The application was submitted by the Greek infrastructure group Copelouzos on behalf of its subsidiary Elica, which is implementing a huge project that will transfer 3,000 megawatts of energy into Greece's Attica peninsula via a subsea cable.
The project was envisioned in 2009 and activated by a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy.
The project, also known as GREGY, aims to replace Europe’s usage of 4.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year and reduce CO2 emissions by 10 million tons annually. The subsea cable will be implemented with a total budget of 4.2 billion euros.
Egypt stepped in to help Europe which has been facing an energy crisis triggered by the decline of natural gas supplies from Russia on the heels of the Russian-Ukrainian War.
The EU has significantly increased its liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Egypt, among six countries, in 2022, according to a report by the World Bank.
In 2022, Egypt boosted its LNG exports by 14 percent to 8 million tons of LNG, 90 percent of which was delivered to the EU markets, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El-Molla said in November, as it sought to plug the hole left by lower Russian imports to the EU.
Earlier in 2021, Egypt exported nearly 7 million tons of LNG, 80 percent of which was shipped to the EU markets, according to El-Molla’s remarks at the time.
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