Crete Looks at Imports of CNG

An Egyptian-Greek joint venture is considering a project to supply Crete with compressed natural gas as an alternative solution to the supply of liquefied natural gas.

Medcarrier has selected Canada's Sea NG to provide vessels for the proposed project.

“This is really a feasibility study. We need both approval from the Greek authorities and the Egyptian government to provide the gas,”a spokesman for Medcarrier said.

He said the project can only be viable if the Egyptian government allocates it natural gas for export. The proposed CNG project sees the export of between 500 million and 1 billion cubic metres of gas per annum to Greece, he added.

Medcarrier said it would be using Coselle CNG ships - operated by Sea NG - to transport natural gas from Egypt to markets in the Mediterranean region.

The vessels will take 30 months to build.

The announcement came a week after Public Power Corporation of Greece approved a memorandum of co-operation with Greek company Medgas to evaluate the long-term supply of Crete's existing and new power generation units with marine CNG.

Medgas will be the marketing partner of Medcarrier in the proposed CNG project.

Medcarrier is a joint venture formed between Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Corporation, Arabia Gaz of Egypt, and the Copelouzos Group of Greece.