CO2 Storage - Greece and Egypt sign MOU

The Greek Minister of Environment and Energy, Mr. Theodore Skylakakis

The Greek-Egyptian cooperation in the field of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technologies is expected to be ratified at noon on Monday, February 17, by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by the Greek Minister of Environment and Energy, Mr. Theodore Skylakakis, and the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources of the African country, Mr. Karim Badawi.

The agreement will be signed on the sidelines of the "EGYPES 2025" international exhibition, which is being held in Cairo on February 17-19.

The Athens-Cairo agenda for CO2 storage

The issue has been high on the agenda of bilateral energy relations for months and has now matured. Since last spring, the Greek government had raised with the European Commission the issue of revising the industrial emissions management strategy in order to allow for the storage of quantities of captured CO2 (carbon dioxide) in geological storage facilities or other infrastructure outside the EU.

CO2 storage expertise

There had been previous consultations with the Egyptian side on the prospect of storing CO2 emissions bound by Greek industries in storage infrastructure to be developed in Egypt. Now the conditions are ripe for cooperation between the two countries in this specific sector.

In particular, Greece, through the Hellenic Hydrocarbon and Energy Resources Management Company (EREMA), will provide its know-how and experience regarding the development of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) mechanism and will assist in coordinating the procedures required with the European Commission, in order to pave the way for the creation of CO2 storage facilities in Egypt and their use to meet European needs.

In Greece, Enearth, a subsidiary of Energean, is already “running” a project to store CO2 in Prinos (Prinos CO2 Storage). The environmental impact study has already been put out to public consultation and the granting of a storage permit by EREMA is pending. The storage in the almost depleted oil fields of Prinos is planned to operate, in the first phase, with a capacity of 1 million tons of CO2 and in the second phase 3 million tons of CO2.

At the same time, Greek industries are promoting carbon capture projects while DESFA is advancing with the investment and technological maturation of the first CO2 transport network to the Prinos storage facility. However, the establishment of a regulatory and regulatory framework for CCS technology in our country is still pending from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

Big Oil at EGYPES 2025 and Skylakakis' appointments

More generally, the Greek presence at "EGYPES 2025" will be strong as, in addition to representation at a political level (Minister and Deputy Minister of Energy Mr. Thodoros Skylakakis and Mrs. Alexandra Sdoukou), the head of EREMA Mr. Ar. Stefatos will participate, while the Copelouzos group, which is developing the Greece-Egypt electricity interconnection (GREGY), Enterprise Greece, Energean, Helleniq Energy, DESFA, Asprofos, etc. will have stands.

In fact, the international exhibition will feature, among others, Chevron President Mr. Clay Neff and ExxonMobil Vice President Mr. John Andrill, with whom, according to information, the political leadership of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources will meet.

The meeting will take place at an ideal momentum in view of the announcement of the tender for the new offshore plot in the Southern Peloponnese in which Chevron is interested, as well as the investment decision by ExxonMobil, within the year, for exploratory drilling in the concessions of Crete in which it is the operator.

The tender

Regarding the tender for the South Peloponnese block, the tender is expected to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union so that the 90 days for the expression of interest can begin to coun, while the issue of the "spatial expansion of the surveys" is pending, as stated in the relevant announcement by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources for the new concession, beyond the 11,000 square kilometers of the area occupied by the marine plot.

source: ot.gr