Greece is among the fastest growing renewable energy producers in the world, but it continues to place emphasis on natural gas and is happy to see the start of hydrocarbon drilling as early as this year, Greek Ministry of Energy officials told a conference on Wednesday.
Environment and Energy Minister Thodoros Skylakakis told a panel at the 14th Athens Energy Summit that Greece is open to any chance for energy interconnections and will pursue further the expansion of its renewables market.
“In an unpredictable world, you have to factor in this unpredictability and go to the essentials, hence we are moving ahead with renewables faster than most other countries are,” he stated, adding that “we are one of the fastest growing renewable energy markets in the world.”
“In general, Greece is among the major energy producers and consumers. We are open to all efficient interconnections, we must consider efficiency in everything we do,” he stressed, making a special reference to the importance of interconnections with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Cyprus, for which he is scheduled to meet on Thursday with the Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry of Cyprus, Giorgos Papanastasiou, who was also present at the event in Athens.
Natural gas
Speaking earlier in the day at the Energy Summit, Deputy Energy Minister Alexandra Sdoukou dismissed claims there has been a shift by the government away from renewables and back toward natural gas: “There is no shift in our position. Natural gas is a transition fuel, so that we can focus on the cost of shifting toward green energy. It is a ‘bridge’ fuel, and the whole of the European Union needs it.”
Sdoukou then added that “it is likely that within 2025 the first drilling will take place for natural gas, probably off Crete. It depends on the decisions of the investors,” she noted and pointed at the interest expressed by US oil giant Chevron: “It is coming thanks to the truce in the Middle East and the economic and political stability in Greece; its expression of interest has great significance for us, and constitutes the start of investor presence in Greece and an indication of our potential.”
For his part, Papanastasiou stressed that stability in the region comes through energy. He described the Greece-Cyprus-Israel electricity interconnection as a good example of what the three countries can achieve by cooperating, but also referred to technical challenges facing the project.
In relation to hydrocarbon deposits, he noted that the Kronos deposit, which is located at the shortest distance from the Egyptian Zor deposit, and can therefore be transported via existing infrastructure to Egypt for liquefaction, will be the first to be put into commercial utilization.
The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of North Macedonia, Sanja Bozhinovska, presented the country’s energy policy aimed at decarbonization and the energy interconnections being promoted. Among them are the construction of a natural gas interconnection pipeline with Greece, with the possibility of transit to Serbia, and electrical interconnections with Greece, Albania and through it to Italy.