Nicosia, Cyprus. The planned natural gas pipeline linking Turkey and northern Cyprus will be operational in 2028, the north’s public works minister Erhan Arikli told the Turkish Cypriot legislature on Tuesday. He said the project would cost about $700 million.
Pipeline plan
Arikli said the project would involve about 97 kilometres of pipeline, starting in Alanya in southern Turkey and reaching either the Teknecik power station or another area in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
He said engineering studies would be completed by the end of this year and that the project’s feasibility study had already reached a certain point.
Alanya is not currently connected to a natural gas pipeline, but work is underway to connect it to Mersin, which is supplied by natural gas flowing from Azerbaijan via Georgia and from Turkmenistan via Iran.
Possible regional link
Arikli said that once the cable is complete, the possibility of transporting gas that may be found in the eastern Mediterranean to Europe via Turkey through a second pipeline would emerge.
He described the natural gas project as “a bridge of peace.”
Electricity cable and solar power
Arikli also spoke about plans to connect Turkey and the north with an electricity cable, saying that no official response had been received from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity on the matter.
Entso-E had previously rejected suggestions that it might include plans for the cable in its continent-wide ten-year development plan, saying that the Great Sea Interconnector, which if completed will connect the electricity grids of Cyprus, Greece and Israel, was the only interconnector project connecting the Republic of Cyprus in its plans.
Arikli also said the north was not making sufficient use of its solar energy potential and that the main reason was deficiencies in the energy transmission infrastructure.
