Like a Christmas present - Cyprus Natural Gas!

"Like a Christmas present, what was widely rumored and anticipated following recent Israeli hydrocarbon discoveries, Houston’s Noble Energy announced in late December 2011 the results of its recent well in the Cypriot
Economic Zone. It contains up to 9tcf of natural gas, a world class discovery.
The block, appropriately dubbed Aphrodite, the goddess reputed to have been born in the sea off Cyprus, is likely to usher a hydrocarbon bonanza for the island nation, a member of the European Union and the site of a rich and tumultuous history, including the ongoing unresolved dispute between Greece and Turkey. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is recognized only by Turkey.
The reverberations from recent events and their implications, along with amazing coincidences, bring to the fore the traditional meaning of the word Byzantine, as in complicated but tantalizing.
The size of the ultimate recoverable gas in the eastern Mediterranean, according to the United States Geological Survey, is of the order of 200tcf of natural gas and at least 7 billion barrels of oil. Israel has already booked about 50tcf and a dozen new Cypriot blocks, currently in the process of being offered to international bidders, will almost certainly add a further 50tcf, perhaps even 75tcf, to that already discovered.
The situation creates a new geopolitical reality in the area, perhaps as important as the Arab Spring. It is certainly affected by Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan, who has chosen a path of confrontation with Israel. For the Greek-dominated Cyprus government, Erdogan could not have been manufactured better by central
casting. His rapprochement with Islamists in Egypt and the Palestinians and good relations with international pariah Iran, may appeal to his Islamist flank but, beyond the deterioration of relations with Israel, it works counter to his country’s image in the west and his ambitions for EU membership.
Israel is now inextricably tied to Cyprus. A natural allie, culturally and for a number of other reasons, Israel offers the best shield possible for Cyprus against an intransigent Turkey.
The would-be elephant in the room, Greece, Cyprus’ traditional supporter, has become a shadow because of its dire economic situation.
All of this, coupled with the coincidence that it appears that hydrocarbons geologically do not reach north of Cyprus, bb & flow makes for an astonishing turn of events. Turkey is practically neutralized. Coincidence upon coincidence, Cyprus takes over the Presidency of the EU next summer.
What is likely to happen next on the ground? It could play out something like this.
Israel’s Tamar field is under fast-track development.
Cyprus could proceed immediately to secure 100mmscf per day of natural gas from that field. That amount of gas, enough for current Cypriot power needs, can be transported with a relatively easy to place 8in pipeline for a cost of less than
$1 billion. Natural gas could come to Cyprus within two years at a price that would cut electricity costs by at least 50%.
The next step for Cyprus might involve and focus on oil exploration in adjoining blocks. Cyprus should definitely push the limits of the USGS estimate of 3.7 billion barrels of petroleum.
Oil discovery would prove strategic for the country and the area. Seismic mapping and some attributes suggest the presence of more oil towards Cyprus blocks, compared to those in the Israeli economic zone.
Israel’s giant Leviathan field, now upgraded by Noble Energy to hold 20tcf of natural gas and Aphrodite, are likely to be unitized with Cyprus and Israel each getting a percentage of the operation (as equal shares or proportional to the gas content), to supply three LNG liquefaction trains in Cyprus for LNG export of 20 million tonnes per annum. The fields are practically one and the same anyway, the boundary being an artifact of geography not geology. Two large, 36in pipelines would be needed to bring gas from Leviathan and Aphrodite to a Cypriot LNG liquefaction facility. This could happen within five to six years at an estimated cost of $15 billion.
Multiples of this development can take place and international demand, headed by China, indicates that a lot more natural gas will be needed in the world over the next decades. There is no shortage of gas any time soon in the eastern Mediterranean.
Europe will find a very attractive alternative to Russian gas on its doorstep and Cyprus and Israel could reap a pot of gold (assuming they do not repeat the mistakes of the other oil & gas nouveau riche).

* Michael J Economides is a professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, and editor-in-chief of the Energy Tribune. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect OE’s position.

Φυσικό Αέριο στην Κύπρο! Η Τουρκία προκαλεί και απειλεί!...

"...Όπως μεταδίδεται στα κατεχόμενα, ο κ. Νταβούτογλου προειδοποίησε ότι «εάν στο θέμα αυτό υπάρξει βήμα από τους Ελληνοκύπριους, τότε θα επιδειχθεί η πρέπουσα αντίδραση»...."
‎"...εάν η επίσημη τουρκική πολιτική είναι οι θέσεις που εξέφρασε πρόσφατα ο Τούρκος πρωθυπουργός, Ρετζέπ Ταγίπ Ερντογάν, «τα περιθώρια για συμφωνημένη, βιώσιμη και λειτουργική λύση στο Κυπριακό τορπιλίζονται και εξανεμίζονται». Ο πρόεδρος Χριστόφιας χαρακτήρισε απαράδεχτες, προκλητικές, κυνικές και αλαζονικές τις δηλώσεις Ερντογάν κατά την παράνομη επίσκεψή του στα κατεχόμενα..."
‎"...«αντί για προκλητικές δηλώσεις, η Τουρκία πρέπει να υιοθετήσει τη Σύμβαση για το Δίκαιο της Θάλασσας, που είναι μέρος του κοινοτικού κεκτημένου. Πρέπει επίσης να αναλάβει τις ευθύνες της και να καθοδηγήσει τους εκπροσώπους της τουρκοκυπριακής κοινότητας σε τήρηση εποικοδομητικής στάσης που θα επιτρέψει την επίτευξη λύσης στο Κυπριακό»...."
‎"...«Οι απειλές της Τουρκίας σε ό,τι αφορά τις έρευνες και την εκμετάλλευση του φυσικού πλούτου της Κύπρου δεν τρομοκρατούν κανέναν», δήλωσε την Κυριακή ο Αρχιεπίσκοπος Χρυσόστομος Β’.
...
«Ο κυπριακός ελληνισμός δεν πρόκειται να συνθηκολογήσει» ..."

Turks, wearing the "Burga of Hypocrisy", ... ask to enter "peacefully" in the European Union.

Constantinople, the city of Constantine (in Greek), Istanbul (is tin Poli, in Greek), was Greek, built on the ruins o Byzantium, built by Byzas, a Greek hero from Megara, near Athens!... Byzantium, Eastern Roman Empire, included many nations, with Greeks in the most profound position, because of their culture (even Ottoman Turks, used Greeks because they themselves were illiterate and suitable only for aggressive war against Christians). In the middle ages, fights between christian rulers led to weakening of Byzantium. Ottoman Turks moved aggressively those days, in order to spread islam violently and brutally to the West. Byzantium fall, leading to hundreds of years of terrible slavery to the region (Ottoman rule, inhuman, cruel rule). By the way, the cruel invasion of Ottoman Turks stopped outside Vienna by Eugene of Savoy!... Peoples under Ottoman rule suffered terribly, many confessed to Islam, these are the remnants of Turkish occupation in Cyprus, Balkans and elsewhere. The wind of freedom, and the corrupted Ottoman Empire, finally was overthrown: A small part of Greece was liberated in the early 19th century, later Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus. Now Turkey cries over lost occupied Territories, eg Crete, Rhodes, Aegean islands. By the way, no one "gives away" islands, the islands we mention are and were Greek, (as Asia Minor), long before Ottoman Aggressors appearad in the area to spread violently and fiercely islam!
Churches and cultural heritage of our occupied land in Cyprus (a member of UN & EU) ARE DESTROYED and desacracated even at the very moment we speak, by aggressive Turks. Turks, wearing the "Burga of Hypocrisy", ignorant and afionised by false and fake pseudohistory, ask to enter "peacefully" in the European Union. Their bullish behaviour make us not to trust them. They are unable to change, they can not join European Union, a free and democratic institution.

Turkey will NEVER join EU!

Turkey will NEVER join EU! They keep acting as bully in the area, they have occupying forces in Cyprus (a member state), they perform ethinc cleansing and destroy cultural identity of Cyprus, builting HUNDREDS of mosques in deserted Greek villages, they refuse GENOCIDE of Armenians, Greeks and other nations in Ottoman empire (long time before Hitler and Holocaust of Jews). Turkey is not a European nation but an aggressive islamist country, with people afionised with lies, hatred, ignorance and fanatism. All the above happen just the time we are writing, even if wwe put aside historic issues of the past!...Don't you (good wiil people) wonder why, for example, even Germany and France, do not accept Turkey in EU, but propose only a special relation?

TURKEY IN EUROPE! A long way to go, and if!...

What did Greece give to Europe? Even its name, "Europe" (means "Open eyed"), ideas, "democracy, philosophy"...
Turks stormed here in the area in earlier years, as fanatic conquerors, to spread Islam. This menace was stopped outside Vienna... Christians in the region (Greeks, Armenians, Slavs. Hungarians and others) suffered for many years under Ottomaqn rule, until finallly the ideas of FREEDOM & DEMOCRACY prevailed in Europe and the World. Turks want us to believe that they are different from their past, they have changed. Without admitting the genocide of Greeks and Armenians in Pontos, East Turkey. By invading Cyprus, a Member of the UN and EU, destroying its Greek cultural wealth, performing ethinc cleansing. By threatening Greece, its neighbour, member of UN & EU, with war, if the rule of law is applied in the Aegean Sea. They even remind us of their presence in Crete, another Greek island, where they stayed as invaders - coquerors.... They ask their victims to say "thank you and we miss you!...
Cyprus: A Greek island, 80% Majority Greeks, lived in peace with Turkish Cypriots, until the war of indpendence against Colonialism, when Turks took side with the colonial power. Now HUNDREDS OF MOSQUES appear in our deserted villages, and OUR CHURCHES ARE DESTROYED by Turks.
This is the country that wants to join Europe: Without accepting European standards and values!... Time, democracy, freedom, can change - improve nations - Turkey must try harder, accepting these values first...

Turkey in the European Union? NO THANKS!

From discussion in FACEBOOK!
...
Where Turkey is? In occupied Cyprus, destroying the cultural identity and preventing the legitimate citizens of Cyprus to return to their homes, properties... By the way, Cyprus is a Member of the European Union...
Turkey is also bullying th...e Greek islands in the Aegean, threatening Greece, another member of the EU, with war, if Greece extends to 12 miles its territorial waters according to the International Laws.
...
‎@EgemenYavas: There was no Turkish part in Cyprus in 1974 for anyone to send troops there (except an enclave of seccesionists between Nicosia & Kyrenia (which were "undisturbed")). The Annan plan was so onesided, that 76% of Greek Cypriots said NO as their democratic view implied! Greek Cypriots are 80% of legitimate citizens of Cyprus, Turkish Cypriots are themselves persecuted by the military of Turkish invating forces that forced them to leave Cyprus. Turkey performs genocide and ethnic cleansing in the occupied part of Cyprus, destroying churches, buliding hundred of mosques and changing the history of Cyprus!
...
The Greek majority and the Turkish minority lived peacefully in Cyprus before the Colonialists used Turks to fight against self determination of Cyprus. I do not accept that Greek Cypriots would kill their Turkish cypriot neighbours. However, Turkish invasion in Cyprus was a brutal act, aiming at ethinc cleansing of occupied Cuprus. A simplified example of what happened in cyprus in 1974 and the Turkish view thereafter: A thief seizes your purse, and then he proposes to you to retrun a portion of what he stole, in order to ... live peacefully with you! Europe needs democracy, freedom of movement, respect of property. Can Turkey accept and honour that?
...
Turkey stormed Christian Europe in Middle Ages in order to force "Infidel" Christians to become muslims or else...! Now, they hypocritically pretend that they can tolerate other religions and "ask their victims" to accept that Turkey keeps most of the occupied territories!...
...
Turkey "planted" hundreds of mosques in the occupied part of Cyprus, destroying at the same time Christian churches of the expelled Greek Cypriots. Thiw is called ethnic cleansing! The only way for Turlkey to "enter" Europe is by military invasion!
...
European Union is a free, democratic institution. Members must adhere and follow the international laws, avoid military intervention in other member states or threats of war against neighbours! Turkey must respect the European values first! This a prerequisit that Turkey avoids to follow.

"While Obama Talks Turkey, US Policy Is One"

From "ENERGY TRIBUNE"
http://www.energytribune.com/

While Obama Talks Turkey, US Policy Is One

Peter C Glover

President Obama has been banging the drum for Turkey’s accession to the European Union. Not that there’s anything new in his policy. Turkey joining the EU has been US policy for every recent occupant of the White House, including George W. Bush.
Obama sees a ‘European Turkey’ as a win-win situation both for Europe and the United States. He believes, as does the Turkish PM Recep Erdogan, that it is the natural quid pro quo for Turkey’s development as Europe’s east-west energy bridge. Obama also perceives it will restore US-Turkish strategic relations in a volatile region. But, above all, Obama believes accession would send a powerful message to the Islamic world –Turkey’s population is 99.8 percent Muslim – that the West is not the enemy.
“The United States and Europe must approach Muslims as our friends, neighbours and partners in fighting injustice, intolerance and violence, forging a relationship based on mutual respect,” Obama told EU leaders in April. “Moving forward toward Turkish membership in the EU,” he went on, “would be an important signal of your commitment to this agenda.”
Fine-sounding words. So why did they go down like a lead balloon in Berlin, Paris and other EU capitals? To understand why, Obama and American policymakers – of red and blue persuasion – need to stop isolating energy and strategic international considerations from social and cultural ones. Put bluntly – and it is not what the ‘listening’ Obama wants to hear – the last thing most European states want is Turkey’s Islamic millions unleashed on a Europe increasingly struggling with a burgeoning self-imposed Muslim apartheid. In the view of key EU leaders, a United States still largely undiluted by multicultural soup-ism, just doesn’t get it.
The energy bridge
There is no doubting Turkey’s potential role as an east-west energy hub that can help Europe achieve greater diversification from Russian oil and gas dependence. The ‘great pipe hope’ is the Nabucco gas pipeline scheduled for construction in 2011. However, the 7.9 billion euro project to transport gas from Turkey to Austria through Bulgaria and Hungary, reducing European dependency on Russian gas, has been fraught with problems since conception. Not least over the viability of non-Russian sources of gas to run through it. Most of Turkmenistan’s gas distribution is already managed by Russia’s Gazprom. Iranian gas exports are subject to US and UN sanctions over its nuclear enrichment program.
Such is the lack of confidence Nabucco will ever prove viable, that a recent EU energy summit dropped it entirely from its Priority Project list. Nabucco’s developers breathed a sigh of relief, however, when the project was reinstated with seed-funding of 200 million euros. But within weeks of the EU’s cash commitment in early March 2009, Nabucco received a further devastating blow. Nabucco’s first phase had always been reliant on two new gas fields coming online in Azerbaijan. At a ceremony on March 27 in Moscow, however, the head of Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company signed over the gas rights to his nation’s Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli and Shah-Deniz II fields on the Caspian to Russia’s Gazprom. Nabucco, once again, is in crisis over where it will get its gas.
But as much as it is a blow for European energy diversification hopes, it is also a blow for Turkish accession hopes. Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, has already linked EU-Turkish energy prospects to stalled talks over Turkey’s EU membership even refusing to attend a recent conference on the pipeline’s construction until new membership talks make progress. With prospects for Nabucco weakened, so too is Turkey’s leverage over EU talks. Without Nabucco, Europe – particularly Germany, which has constantly undermined Nabucco, preferring to cut its own deals with Russia – can call time on Turkish hopes once and for all. But why should they want to? While Obama and US policy may perceive the accession of Turkey’s almost 80 million Muslims into what Islamic nations (and Obama) may see as a ‘Christian’ club as a useful international, intra-cultural olive branch, Europeans perceive the issue in far darker social terms.
Muslim Apartheid
Germany and France already have enormous social problems with their un-integrated Islamic millions, many, especially in Germany, from Turkey. Germany, France and Britain are all currently struggling with mass immigration problems after accession was granted to poor eastern European states. But Turkey is poorer still, having only one-third the standard of living of most European countries. Mass Turkish emigration across Europe if accession is granted is seen as inevitable. More specifically, Europe’s concerns include:
Turkey is not culturally ‘European’
Accession will unleash a wave of Turkish (Muslim) immigrants on Europe
Turkey is too big and will thus wield too much power in Europe
Turkey is too poor and will cost the rest of the EU too much in subsidies

Denmark, Greece and Cyprus are among Turkey’s other detractors. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy swept to power in May 2007 on a tide of anti-Turkish/Muslim sentiment in the wake of France’s on-going street riots – again linked to disaffected, un-integrated, Islamist youth. Germany and France want Turkey offered ‘privileged partner’ status. But for Turkish PM Recep Erdogan anything less than full membership is a non-starter if the country’s hopes for modernization are to be realized – at the expense of European taxpayers. The EU’s own polls consistently reveal cross-European support for Turkey’s admission hovering around 30-35 percent. The most comprehensive, in 2005, showed only 20 percent support in France and 21 percent in Germany. Even in Britain, where support is highest in Europe, it is just 44 percent. In that sense the US-UK-backed policy has no democratic support from Europeans. If anything those percentages since 2005 can have only dropped further. Far from demanding acceptance or integration – the alleged multicultural ideal – Muslim communities in Germany, France, Britain and across Europe generally are increasingly demanding the right to exercise Sharia Law via their own courts, as well as live in cultural separation in schools and society. No wonder Europe enthusiasm for Turkish accession is wholly at odds with that of current American policy. But internal social concerns are only the half of it.
Turkey: the reality
Obama’s assertion that Europe, the US and Turkey hold, “common values that we share as democracies” does not bear closer scrutiny. While the White House persists in speaking of a Turkish secular state, domestically PM Recep Erdogan, with the apparent blessing of his people, plainly has other aspirations. Turkey’s Islamist leaders see Erdogan’s Islamist aspirations as positioning the country as the champions of a new caliphate. Erodgan’s wife is not only a practising Muslim but a politically active one. She wears the veil and in 2006 her husband’s government attempted to criminalize adultery, amongst other more radical Islamist moves. On assuming the premiership, Erdogan attempted to appoint Ahmet Sezr, an Islamist who perceives monetary interest as contrary to Koranic teaching, as head of the central bank. In April 2007 Erdogan nominated Abdullah Gul, his former foreign minister and another Islamist, as president. This gave the prime minister a virtual political free hand.
Erdogan travels more often to other Muslim countries than to Europe and has openly been accused of Islamizing foreign policy. In 2006 Erdogan even stunned Western friends by hosting the leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. In April 2007 at a meeting of the Arab League in Sudan, Erdogan outspokenly rejected Western accusations that the Khartoum government was guilty of genocide in its Darfur region. “Foreign policy is definitely taking on a more Islamist tone under this government,” confirms Ali Tekin, a teacher of international relations at Ankara’s Bilkent University.
The ‘values’ of which Obama speaks must, above all, include the democratically protected right to free speech. Yet Turkey recently blocked NATO Secretary General, former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, from taking office because of his principled support of free speech during Denmark’s Mohammedan Cartoon affair. And, as recently as March, the EU had cause to warn Erdogan’s government, after it imposed a massive $500 million fine on the Dogan Group, Turkey’s largest media group. The draconian fine was interpreted by the EU and other Western observers as an attack on free speech in the Turkish press.
Does any of this sound ‘European’ to the Obama administration? Does any of this sound like a country moving towards “common values shared by democratic states”? Handcuffing EU states to a ticking demographic cultural and social time-bomb – as Germany and France attempted to warn the ‘listening’ Obama – on the altar of Islamist appeasement is just too high a price to pay for an ‘energy bridge’ that already looks like a pipedream. Obama might talk Turkey, but his EU-Ankara policy patently is one.
ENDS