Author: Athanasios Koutoupas

Egypt Heads Project to Connect 10 African Countries through Nile Shipping Line

By 2024, a 4,000 kilometers waterway will connect ten African countries, stretching between Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea. An Egypt-led project, the navigational shipping line is to be established along the Nile River for small and medium-size commercial vessels to boost bilateral trade.

Egyptian Minister of Water and Irrigation Moahmed Abdel Aty announced the completion of an annual report which highlights the results of the early stages of the feasibility studies. Egypt signed a feasibility studies contract with a German-Belgian international consultancy office, using $650,000 in funding from the African Development Bank, after having completed a pre-feasibility study in May 2015, which cost $500,000.

The 12 billion USD line originally incorporated nine countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt. Despite political strife with Egypt over its Renaissance Dam, Ethiopia decided in January to jump aboard the project.

The Egyptian government and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEDPAD), the technical body of the African Union, launched the project in June 2013, with the idea to promote “intermodal” transport by integrating river, rail and road transport facilities along the Nile Corridor and to develop river management capacity.

“This project will boost economic development in the Nile Corridor by increasing trade and regional integration, as well as the transport of goods and people,” NEPAD states.

Intermodal transport integration will include sections along the Trans-Africa Highway (Cape Town–Cairo, Lagos-Mombasa, Dakar-Ndjamena-Djibouti and Cairo-Dakar), various railway lines, as well as the big harbours in Alexandria, Suez Canal, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, indicates the NEPAD website.

Egypt has listed a number of potential project components, including supporting economic development in the Nile Basin by raising the level of trade and transport of goods and people, constructing a navigational line connecting Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea through the Nile River, and establishing river navigation management training centres in some of the footprint states “based on the Egyptian experience”.

Phase one of the project will comprise the section from Lake Albert in Uganda to Khartoum in Sudan, the section from Gambeila in Ethiopia to the White Nile in South Sudan, and the section from Khartoum in Sudan to Aswan in Egypt. Phase two will comprise the section from Lake Victoria to Lake Albert, both in Uganda, and the section between the Blue Nile Basin in Ethiopia and the Main Nile in Sudan.

(egyptianstreets.com)

February 25, 2017
EuroAfrica cable enters crucial phase

The EuroAfrica Interconnector, a planned subsea electric cable connecting the Egyptian, Cypriot and Greek power grids to continental Europe has entered a crucial phase of conducting project studies with a signing ceremony for a memorandum of understanding among all parties having taken place on Monday.

The officials attending the signing ceremony in Cairo endorsed their commitment to implementing the EuroAfrica Interconnector energy bridge connecting Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece with the European electric network with 2000MW.
The aim of EuroAfrica is to offer significant economic and geopolitical benefits to the involved countries and contribute to the European Union’s target for 10 per cent of electricity interconnection between member states.

President of EuroAfrica Interconnector Nasos Ktorides said that this inspired partnership can only bring benefits to the three participating nations.

“Greece will increase its energy efficiency, and will become a major player in the European energy arena, Cyprus will be an electricity hub in the south eastern Mediterranean and Egypt will become an important energy hub for Africa and electricity carrier for the European continent,” he said.

In a packed news conference attended by the highest officials of Egypt’s ministries of Energy, Electricity and Foreign Affairs, the Egyptian minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy Dr Mohamed Shaker highlighted the importance of the submarine electric cable as part of his country’s strategic plan for economic development and energy security.

Shaker emphasised both his personal commitment and that of the Egyptian government to bringing this great venture to fruition.

Earlier, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called a meeting with Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and Shaker, where he expressed the government’s commitment to the project.

Shaker announced after the meeting that El-Sisi requested that he be regularly informed on the progress of the project on a weekly basis and to ensure that the whole project is successfully completed within the desired timeframes.

At the signing ceremony, the Egyptian power company chief Gaber Desouky described it as an historic moment, which brings Egypt closer to the day when it is connected to the pan-European electricity grid.

In a brief address, the ambassadors of Cyprus, Charis Moritsis, and Greece, Michael Christos Diamessis, also expressed the support of their governments in taking the project forward.

The conclusion of the necessary studies will mark the beginning of the implementation of the interconnector electric cable, which is expected to bolster the three countries’ energy security and independence, and allow them to export power to European countries with an energy deficit.

(cyprus-mail.com)

February 25, 2017
Total to start exploratory drilling off Cyprus with Greece following

The discovery of natural resources in Israel and Egypt has motivated big companies to look into the Eastern Mediterranean closer. The French oil exploration company Total is ready to start exploratory marine drilling off Cyprus.

What made this possible was the discovery of the Egypt’s Zohr deposit. Experts argue that the chances for deposits of similar value in Cyprus’ neighboring Block 11 have really increased.

Three companies so far have been awarded exploration licenses by Cyprus: Total, ExxonMobil and ENI.

Total also plans to start similar drilling activities to Greece as well, in the Ionian Sea. A delegation from Total visited Greece a couple of weeks ago to discuss the relevant details with members of the Greek government.

Cyprus Natural Hydrocarbons Company CEO Charles Ellinas in an interview to New Europe on the 27th of January was asked if the massive Zohr deposit, the largest ever field discovered in the eastern Mediterranean, could affect negatively the export of hydrocarbons from Cyprus and Greece. His reply was that “it has affected Cyprus in that Cyprus was hoping to sell its gas to Egypt both for the domestic market and for liquefaction and export to Europe as LNG. This has now gone away because of commercial factors but also because of Zohr”, but “ the discovery of Zohr opened up the possibility of more discoveries in carbonate formations. “Total is drilling mid-2017 in block 11, adjacent to Zohr, and there are reasonable indications for a gas discovery”.

Asked if both Greek and Cyprus hydrocarbons could be jointly exported to Europe and if they do need Israel as well, Ellinas noted that the problem for Cypriot and Israeli gas is commercial. “By the time it reaches Europe, by pipeline or as LNG, it is to expensive to compete with gas prices prevailing in Europe, particularly Russian gas. And these prices will be there for the longer term – at least to 2025,” he said, adding that if gas discoveries are made in Greece they will have a better chance. It is closer to Europe and by then there will be infrastructure in place to transport it.

(www.tornosnews.gr)

February 25, 2017
The Statue of Liberty was modeled after an Arab woman

As Americans grapple with Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, it’s a good time to point out a little-known irony. The Statue of Liberty — that symbol of American freedom and diversity that has greeted immigrants for generations — was originally modeled after an Arab woman.

The statue’s designer, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, was enamored with Egyptian pyramids and monumental sculpture. According to historian Edward Berenson, in the 1860s, Bartholdi decided to build a monument to commemorate the opening of Egypt’s Suez Canal.

“And that monument was going to be a woman in the southern opening of the canal holding up a torch over her head and that woman was dressed in Arab peasant garb,” Berenson says. But when the ruler of Egypt, Khedewi Ismail Pasha, went bankrupt, the colossal Suez sculpture project was jettisoned.

But the artist soon found a way to recycle his design. “A couple of years earlier, Bartholdi and his friends decided they were going to give a gift to the United States that was going to celebrate the centennial of the American Revolution,” Berenson explains. “And then, Bartholdi thought, ‘Ah! I’ve got a great idea! I can reuse this image but change it to fit the American Revolution.’”

Bartholdi changed the woman that was originally dressed in Arab garb into a Greco-Roman goddess of liberty. And the Statue of Liberty, as we know her today, was born.

(www.pri.org)

February 25, 2017