By Federico Maccioni and Abinaya V
ABU DHABI (Reuters) -Cyprus Energy Minister, George Papanastasiou, said on Thursday that Abu Dhabi’s energy and water company TAQA is interested in investing in the delivery of an international electricity connection project.
The Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) cable will link transmission networks of Europe to Cyprus in a project valued at 1.9 billion euros ($2.12 billion), and later stretch to Israel.
Speaking in the United Arab Emirates capital, Papanastasiou also said that the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) could invest in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), referring to a sea-zone where Cyprus has commercial rights.
“They are looking for assets which are ready to go. However, we have not excluded the possibility of entering a new licensing round to move into exploration as well,” the minister told Reuters on the sidelines of the Investopia conference.
ADNOC was previously in talks to invest in Cyprus’s emerging natural gas sector, the minister confirmed to Reuters in November.
(Reporting by Federico Maccioni and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan; Writing by Tala RamadanEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Rachna Uppal)
