Israel is looking to exploit its substantial natural gas reserves with two potential pipeline projects to Turkey and Greece, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) announced Sunday.
"If things improve with Turkey... gas could both be sold to Turkey, and to Greece via Turkey," Steinitz told Kathimerini daily.
Steinitz added: "If important reserves are discovered in Israel and Egypt, or even in Egypt, this could justify the construction of a long pipeline to Greece."
"At first we estimated that this would cost $15 billion, which is prohibitive. Now new estimates reduce this to around seven billion [dollars]," he said.
At a three-way summit in Nicosia last month, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel, Greece and Cyprus would form a committee to study plans to build a pipeline between Israel and Cyprus and on to Greece.
AFP reports that Israel has been trying to extract offshore gas since the discovery of the Tamar and Leviathan fields in 2009 and 2010.