Crucial two-day period for the Vertical Corridor in Washington - The scheduled appointments and the new deals coming

The contacts that will be made are not limited to the energy sector, but extend to agreements concerning the shipbuilding and defense industries, Artificial Intelligence and data centers, aiming to further strengthen Greek-American relations.

The positive omen of the auction
The start of the talks is accompanied by positive omens, as the recent auction for capacity reservation in the Vertical Corridor bore fruit through Atlantic SEE LNG - the joint venture of the AKTOR and DEPA Emporias groups. This result is considered a harbinger of the next steps that will be clarified in the coming hours, with the central goal of establishing Greece as a key entry point for American LNG.

Through the infrastructure of the Vertical Corridor, gas will be able to be channeled to the Balkans and Central Europe - from Hungary and Slovakia to Ukraine - strengthening the energy independence of the old continent from Russian gas, a point where the interests of Washington and Brussels completely coincide.

12 EU member states at the Transatlantic Gas Security Summit
In the context of the Transatlantic Gas Security Summit, where 12 EU member states are represented (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Lithuania, Croatia), the main stake is the emergence of the commercial maturity and viability of infrastructure, overcoming any initial malfunctions. New supply agreements are expected to be announced between American giants and companies from countries in the region, following the model of the emblematic Atlantic SEE LNG and Venture Global collaboration announced last November at the PTEC Summit in Zappeio.

The importance of the Summit is underlined by the fact that it coincides with the 10th anniversary of the export of the first American LNG cargo to Europe by Cheniere Energy. Ten years later, the US is Europe's largest LNG supplier and its role in the Old Continent's energy supply is expected to be strengthened even further after the complete ban on Russian gas, with the Vertical Corridor playing a key role in this planning.

The cream of the crop of the American energy industry
In this context, it is no coincidence that today's discussions will include the "cream of the crop" of the American energy industry (Cheniere, Venture Global, Woodside Energy, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Sempra Infrastructure, etc.), as well as executives from the state financial institutions DFC and ExIm Bank. The latter will explore the financing prospects for increasing the Corridor's transport capacity and the development of new floating terminals (FSRU).

Who will participate from Greece
On the Greek side, the political leadership of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, with Minister Stavros Papastavrou and Deputy Minister Nikos Tsafos, is flanked by a strong business delegation. The following are participating: Alexandros Exarchou (AKTOR), George Stassis (PPC), Maria Sferoutsa (DESFA), Konstantinos Xifaras (DEPA Trading), Kostas Sifnaios (Gastrade) and Panagiotis Kanellopoulos (Metlen).

In the context of the Transatlantic Gas Security Summit, the Ministerial Meeting of the countries involved in the Vertical Corridor project will be held, which aims to coordinate them, but also to remove the Commission's reservations regarding the regulatory framework governing the infrastructure, because the full support of Brussels is a prerequisite for Washington for the project to develop into an "avenue" for the rapid transport of American LNG to the North, starting from Greece.

However, interest is also expanding to other critical sectors.

Meetings and deals in Washington
The presence of PPC CEO George Stassis in Washington refers to the effort to further mature the company's giga data center in Kozani, an emblematic project worth 2.3 billion euros, as well as to discussions between PPC and American groups for direct LNG supplies from the United States. Mr. Stassis' contacts with American "hyperscalers" such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google are a continuation of the discussions in Davos, while the issue was on the agenda of the meeting that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had with the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, last week, in the sidelines of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in India.

Finally, the expected agreement between the ONEX group and the South Korean Hanwha Ocean for shipbuilding work in Greece is of particular importance. This cooperation, which is encouraged by the American side, concerns the construction of military and commercial energy-transporting ships. Panos Xenokostas' participation in the mission is also linked to the US interest in the new port in Eleusis, which is intended to act as a strategic counterweight to the presence of the Chinese Cosco in Piraeus.