Jun 22 2023
The Greek Energy Forum had the pleasure to support the Athens Energy Summit 2023 which took place on 20-21 June 2023 in Zappeion Megaron, Athens.
The Summit has a proud 12-year heritage of bringing together leaders from the worlds of energy and finance to network with other influential peers, exchange expert insights and develop strategies and solutions for the most pressing energy issues.
The program of speakers and panelists features a mix of chief executives, ministers and other industry leaders. Members of the GEF Executive Committee and Associates were among the event's distinguished speakers, including:
Dr Valentina Dedi - GEF Vice President
Michalis Mathioulakis - GEF Academic Director
Key takeaways:
Dr Valentina Dedi - The story of enegy transition has been significantly built up over the past few years, and as in every great story, where you have 2 main characters, a hero and a villain, the latter role seems to be given to the oil and gas sector. Usually, every time the role of oil and gas in the future energy mix is discussed, there is a tendency to focus only on certain sectors such as power generation and road transportation (EVs), where indeed the role of hydrocarbons is anticipated to decrease, while ‘forgetting’ its wider diversity of applications.
Oil and gas is expected to hold a dominant position for many years to come in sectors that will be harder to abate (heavy industry, aviation, etc.) and in industries where it is used as a feedstock (i.e., petrochemicals). Also, we should not forget the role of fossil fuels in many of the low carbon technologies that are being discussed and expected to be deployed over the next few decades (i.e. blue hydrogen/ammonia, SAF).
Michalis Mathioulakis - The level of support an energy project gets from a country, is first and foremost linked to the degree to which the project supports the country's national security (strategic) interests.
Since national security interests diverge between countries, we often have situations were the same project can carry high strategic value for one country, and low strategic value for another.
In such cases the project's materialisation is slow or even never moves forward. While all the involved countries declare their interest in the project not all of them care the same about its materialisation.
The East Med gas pipeline is such a case, where for Cyprus the project carries high strategic value, but for Israel and Egypt it has low value since their priority for the vast majority of their gas resources is to direct them to the local market rather than to extensive exports.
On the contrary, the combo project of the Israel-Cyprus gas pipeline + Cypriot LNG export terminal, carries equally high strategic value for both Cyprus and Israel and therefore has much higher probability to materialise than the EastMed gas pipeline ever had.
When you look to the structure you can make sense of a situation. When you stay to the surface, you get lost in the noise...
For further information, visit the link.
SHARE THIS PAGE
