Syria offers to send gas to Cyprus via pipeline
NICOSIA (AFP) – Syria said yesterday it was willing and able to supply Cyprus with all its needs in natural gas via an undersea pipeline from the port of Banya. «We take the issue of supplying Cyprus with natural gas very seriously, and we are ready to offer Cyprus a quantity in the order of 3 million cubic meters (106 million cubic feet) a day,» Syrian Oil Minister Ibrahim Haddad told reporters after a meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Nicos Rolandis during a two-day visit to the island. The figure quoted outstrips the island’s daily requirements, Rolandis said. Cyprus is weighing whether to import gas via pipeline or in liquefied form in tankers. The two ministers also discussed the delimitation of exclusive economic zones in the sea between the two states, as Cyprus mobilizes to take advantage of oil and natural gas deposits beneath the eastern Mediterranean.
