Greece Advances Eastern Mediterranean Energy Hub Ambitions With New LNG and Hydrogen Export Agreements

Background

Greece's emergence as a European energy transit hub has been one of the strategic consequences of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent European effort to eliminate dependence on Russian gas. Greece already hosts the Revithoussa LNG terminal near Athens, the oldest operating LNG facility in the European Union, and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline that carries Azerbaijani gas from the Shah Deniz field through Greece, Albania, and into Italy. The construction of a floating storage and regasification unit at Alexandroupolis in northern Greece, completed in 2024, gave the country a second LNG entry point adjacent to the Turkish border and close to the Bulgarian and North Macedonian gas networks, enabling diversified supply into the western Balkans that had previously been heavily dependent on Russian Turkstream volumes. The Greek government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pursued an active strategy of positioning the country as a southern energy gateway, investing in pipeline and storage infrastructure, developing its offshore exclusive economic zone in the Eastern Mediterranean, and building diplomatic relationships with Israel, Egypt, and Cyprus around energy cooperation frameworks. Greece's geographic position at the intersection of European, Middle Eastern, and North African energy markets gives it structural advantages that successive governments have struggled to translate into concrete investment and trade flows, but the post-2022 European energy emergency created the political and economic conditions that made major international investment available.

The October 2026 Agreement

The framework agreement signed in Athens on October 15, 2026 involves the Greek government, the European Commission represented by Energy Commissioner Teresa Ribera, and three energy companies: Shell, TotalEnergies, and the Greek national energy company DEPA Infrastructure. The core commitment is a twelve-billion-euro, ten-year investment programme covering four infrastructure elements. First, an expansion of regasification capacity at Alexandroupolis from its current 5.5 billion cubic metres per year to 8.5 billion cubic metres, enabling Greece to handle substantially larger LNG import volumes for domestic use and re-export to neighbouring countries. Second, construction of a new hydrogen pipeline corridor from Alexandroupolis northward through Bulgaria to the Giurgiu terminal in Romania, connecting to the planned Central European hydrogen backbone network that Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic are developing under the EU Hydrogen Bank framework. Third, expansion of the underground gas storage facility at Kavala, which increases Greece's strategic reserve capacity and gives it greater ability to supply neighbours in supply emergencies. Fourth, a tripartite offshore wind development programme with Cyprus and Israel covering sites in the Exclusive Economic Zones of all three countries, with combined capacity of approximately 8 gigawatts targeted for completion by 2033 and connected to European markets through the EuroAsia Interconnector submarine cable.

• Alexandroupolis LNG regasification capacity expanded from 5.5 to 8.5 billion cubic metres per year.
• Hydrogen pipeline from Alexandroupolis to Romania connecting to Central European hydrogen backbone.
• Kavala underground storage expansion increases Greek strategic reserve capacity.
• Tripartite Greece-Cyprus-Israel offshore wind: 8 GW target by 2033 via EuroAsia Interconnector.

Strategic and Regional Dimensions

The strategic significance of the Greek energy hub development extends beyond the bilateral economics of LNG imports and re-exports. For the Balkan states that depend on Greek transit infrastructure, including North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro, the expansion of Greek LNG capacity and storage provides a southern supply security backstop that is independent of both Russian pipeline routes and the potentially constrained Turkish transit corridor. Albania and Serbia have signed letters of intent to participate in the expanded southern gas corridor framework, which could create a commercially viable alternative to Russian Turkstream volumes that still supply significant portions of Serbian and Hungarian gas demand. The hydrogen corridor component reflects Greece's ambition to position itself not only as a transitional fossil fuel hub but as a long-term renewable energy exporter as the European energy system progressively decarbonises. Greece has approximately 300 sunny days per year and substantial offshore wind resources in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, and the government's renewable energy target of 80 percent of electricity from renewables by 2030 will generate exportable surplus capacity once the transmission infrastructure is in place. The EuroAsia Interconnector between Greece, Cyprus, and Israel has faced repeated delays due to the technical and financial complexity of laying high-voltage submarine cable across some of the Mediterranean's deepest waters, and the October 2026 tripartite wind framework includes a renewed commitment from all three governments to complete the interconnector by 2030 under an accelerated timeline supported by EU CEF funding. Greece's energy diplomacy is also building its position within EU institutional structures, with Greek officials playing a leading role in the Energy Council working group on southern supply corridor development and in the Mediterranean Energy Platform that coordinates with North African gas producers including Algeria and Egypt.

Sources

• European Commission DG Energy
• Reuters
• Ekathimerini
• Euractiv
• International Energy Agency