Greece and Israel Okays Deal To Build World’s Longest Underwater Gas Pipeline

Though the European Union(EU) and its members have pledged to cut down the usage of harmful fossil fuels, Greece and Israel agree on a deal to build a new gas pipeline to bring natural gas to Europe.

This new underwater pipeline would be the world’s largest and will cost around €6bn($6.72 USD). It is also predicted that it would suffice for 10 per cent of European’s gas needs by the year 2025. though Italy will be the largest single purchaser of the Israeli gas other European countries will benefit as well.

This EastMed line would run for 1,900km from Israeli and Cypriot gas field to Italy via Greece and is expected to transport around 20 billion cubic metres of gas annually. As of now, the longest underwater pipeline is the Nord Stream running 1,224km through the Baltic Sea from Vyborg in Russia bringing Russian natural gas to the German coast for all of Europe.

The EU last month launched a new Green Deal policy package which aimed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 in Europe. The policy package also targets to cut emission from 40 per cent to close to 50 per cent by 2030. But Europe’s gas demands gave risen and according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies estimates, this demand would overtake the total liquefied natural gas supply within three years.

The President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen said that the commission would use €100bn to invest and help the bloc’s economies be able to pay this switch from fossil fuels. Even The European Investment Bank decided this November that by the end of 2021, they would further stop funding fossil fuel projects.

This weekend in the Jordanian capital city of Amman hundreds of people gathered to protest against this agreement to import natural gas from Israel stating that it is a deal of normalisation with the Jewish state.