Mediterranean gas heads to Europe: Egypt and Cyprus launch strategic project

Within a few years, Egypt has turned from a natural gas exporter into a major importer. Domestic production is declining while consumption is rising, prompting Cairo to buy increasing volumes of LNG, mainly from the United States. Gas from Cyprus is expected to provide a solution. From 2028, the new Cronos project is set to send Cypriot gas to Egypt, where it will be processed and liquefied. From there, it can be shipped primarily to the European market, reports OilPrice.com.

Just a few years ago, Egypt was exporting LNG to Europe. Today, it faces the opposite problem. Domestic gas production has been declining for a long time while consumption is rising. The country has therefore resumed LNG imports and is seeking to secure new gas sources from abroad.

Natural gas production in Egypt has fallen sharply in recent years, and this trend is expected to continue in the coming months. At the same time, domestic demand is growing, particularly in the power sector, which faces high consumption during the summer months due to increasing cooling needs.

Egypt is therefore increasingly having to rely on LNG imports to cover the gap between domestic production and consumption. The decline is also confirmed by data from this year’s second quarter. According to an analysis by MEES, production fell by around seven percent year on year to 109.3 million cubic metres per day. Egypt consumes roughly 190 million cubic metres per day, creating an ever-widening deficit between domestic production and consumption.

Cairo has therefore resumed large-scale LNG purchases, particularly from the US. In July, Egypt received a record 21 cargoes of US LNG, more than any other country. In total, this amounted to approximately 1.2 million tonnes of LNG.

Cyprus has the fields, Egypt the LNG terminals

It is in this context that Cyprus enters the picture. It has several significant natural gas discoveries in its exclusive economic zone, but has so far had neither commercial production nor its own export infrastructure.

The Cronos field in Block 6 is closest to development. The Eni and TotalEnergies consortium took a final investment decision (FID) this year, with production due to start in 2028 and subsequently reach approximately 14 million m³ of gas per day (roughly 5.2 bcm per year), equivalent to production of around 2.8 million tonnes of LNG annually.

A key part of the project will be a new subsea link between Cyprus and Egypt. The planned Cronos–Port Said pipeline is expected to be approximately 90 kilometres long and connect to existing Egyptian infrastructure. The gas will then be processed at existing facilities connected to the Zohr field and subsequently liquefied at the Damietta LNG terminal. From there, it will be possible to export it primarily to Europe.

For Cyprus, this model represents a significantly cheaper solution than building its own LNG terminal. While the country will give up part of the gas’s value for transportation, processing and liquefaction, it will avoid multibillion-dollar investment in new export infrastructure.

For Egypt, by contrast, Cypriot gas offers a way to use infrastructure originally built to process its own domestic production.

The agreement was reached as early as 2025

The foundations of the current project were laid on 17 February 2025, when Egypt, Cyprus, Eni and TotalEnergies signed a framework agreement in Cairo on using Egyptian infrastructure to process and export gas from Block 6. The agreement included the use of facilities connected to the Zohr field and the Damietta LNG terminal.

Alongside Cronos, Egypt and Cyprus also established a framework for the future development of the Aphrodite field, which is being developed by a consortium led by Chevron.

The agreements created an interesting business model: Cyprus will supply the commodity, Egypt will provide the infrastructure, and Europe will be the main export market. This is precisely what enables Cypriot fields to be commercially developed without building their own LNG terminal.

In the following months, the two countries concluded further commercial and operational agreements governing the transportation, processing and liquefaction of gas from Cronos.

A small source with major strategic significance

In terms of volume, Cronos will not rank among Europe’s largest new gas sources. Production of around five billion cubic metres per year cannot replace either US LNG or former Russian supplies.

Its significance lies primarily elsewhere. The project demonstrates how new discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean can be connected to existing infrastructure and brought to the European market more quickly.

For Cyprus, it is a historic milestone. The country will become a producer and exporter of natural gas for the first time. For Egypt, Cronos offers an opportunity to bring LNG terminals back into use after they suffered from a shortage of domestic feedgas in recent years. For Europe, it represents another piece in the puzzle of diversifying supplies away from Russia.

If the project does indeed start as planned in 2028, it could also pave the way for other Cypriot discoveries. Cronos is therefore not merely a new Mediterranean field, but a test of a new regional cooperation model from which all three parties—Cyprus, Egypt and Europe—can benefit.