Twelve energy projects on the "fast track".

The Environment, Energy and Climate Change Minister Yiannis Maniatis requested from the Interministerial Committee of Strategic Investments (DESE) on Tuesday the inclusion of 12 large energy projects in the "fast track" swift procedures for strategic investments.

The cumulative budget of these strategic projects - all of which have been adopted as key energy infrastructure projects of common interest (PCI) by the European Commission - is 11.4 billion euros, of which half is associated with the Israel -Cyprus-Greece gas pipeline.

Three out of the twelve energy projects which the minister petitions to transform into "fast track" projects are electricity projects, while the remaining nine projects are all natural gas projects.

The electricity projects include the Greek component of the Euro-Asia Interconnector electricity link of 1,518 kilometers, interconnecting Israel-Cyprus-Greece (about 1 billion euros). It also includes the second Greece-Bulgaria electricity interconnection - between Maritsa East 1 (Bulgaria) and Nea Santa (Greece) - of which the Greek component amounts to a project worth about 10 million euros. The third of the electricity projects petitioned to become "fast tracked" is the 590 MW hydro-pumped storage project at Amfilochia, western Greece, worth about half a billion euros.

The nine natural gas key energy projects petitioned to become "fast tracked" are the following: 1) IGB pipeline interconnecting Greece-Bulgaria (250 million euros), 2) Permanent backflow station in the Greek-Bulgarian borders, 3) INGS LNG Greece project of a floating storage and re-gasification LNG station at Alexandroupoli, north eastern Greece (340 million euros), 4) Aegean LNG import terminal project of a floating storage and re-gasification LNG station (275 million euros), 5) Storage facility at a depleted natural gas deposit, Nea Kavala, northern Greece (400 million euros), 6) TAP pipeline interconnecting Greece-Albania-Italy (Greek component worth 1.5 billion euros), 7) ITGI pipeline interconnecting Turkey-Greece-Italy (investment over land worth 1.1 billion), 8) Eastern Mediterranean pipeline interconnecting an offshore Cypriot deposit to Greek inland and Europe via the island of Crete (6 billion euros) and 9) Natural gas compression station at Kipi Evrou, northeastern Greece (70 million euros).

In a statement, Maniatis mentioned that the rationale behind his "fast track" petition for these large energy projects includes the energy safety of Greece, the integration of the regional energy market through interconnecting neighbouring countries and the geopolitical upgrading of Greece's role as an important "regional player" in the energy safety of the EU itself.