Oruç Reis off Kyrenia: Turkish minister says a gas pipeline to the occupied north could carry Cypriot gas to Europe

The Turkish seismic research vessel Oruç Reis has arrived off Kyrenia, where it is continuing seabed surveys for a planned natural gas pipeline linking Turkey with the occupied north of Cyprus. According to Hürriyet Daily News, Ankara aims to have the project operating in 2028.

The survey programme runs through October 25, while engineering studies are expected to be completed by the end of the year. The vessel is mapping seabed conditions along the proposed route.

The Anamur–Teknecik route

The project envisages two pipelines along a 101-kilometre route from Anamur, in Turkey’s Mersin province, to Teknecik, east of Kyrenia, where the power station of the occupied north is located. Ninety-seven kilometres would run beneath the Mediterranean and four on land.

A memorandum of understanding for the project was signed on July 10 by Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz and Ünal Üstel, the head of the breakaway administration in the occupied north. At the ceremony, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said the system would be designed to carry gas in both directions. Besides supplying the occupied north, he said, it could in future carry gas from new discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean to Turkey and from there to Europe.

The gas supplied from Turkey would initially be used for power generation. According to Bayraktar, the project would meet growing demand and reduce dependence on imported petroleum products.

What it means for Cyprus and Greece

The pipeline ties the occupied north energy-wise to Turkey, bypassing the Republic of Cyprus. Ankara’s reference to future “discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean” points to Turkey’s claims over the hydrocarbons of Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone, where Turkey asserts that Turkish Cypriots have equal rights.

Bayraktar’s remark about carrying Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe via Turkey also matters because Cyprus, Egypt and Greece are promoting alternative energy routes that bypass Turkey. That planning includes taking Cypriot gas to Egypt for liquefaction and export as LNG to Europe, with the option of import through Greek infrastructure and onward flow along the Vertical Corridor to the markets of South-Eastern, Central and Eastern Europe.

The Turkish proposal is in effect a competing energy route, through which Ankara seeks to establish itself as the hub carrying Eastern Mediterranean gas to the European market, using Cypriot deposits to which, in the Greek view, it has no lawful claim.

The Turkish newspaper links the surveys to the Crete–Cyprus electricity interconnector, which is preparing to resume work, with a later extension to Israel. Turkey maintains that surveys and cable-laying in areas where it claims continental shelf rights require prior coordination with Ankara, while Athens rejects the need for any Turkish permission. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently described the GSI as a European project, while Greece’s Ministry of Environment and Energy denied claims that the cable route is being changed (see Geopolitiki’s report on the reroute claims).

Oruç Reis is the vessel at the centre of the 2020 Greek-Turkish crisis, when it carried out surveys south of Kastellorizo. Its new mission is taking place in waters north of Cyprus.