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Can Middle East Gas Meet European Demand?
(Economist-UK) Europe desperately needs new gas resources to replace supplies from Russia that have been disrupted since its invasion of Ukraine. Nine of the 20 countries with the largest proven gas reserves are in the Middle East, but there is little capacity to transport it from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe. To bring the gas to Greece, and perhaps onwards to Italy, would require the world's longest undersea pipeline and take the better part of a decade to finish. That leaves liquefaction. Egypt has two LNG plants on its Mediterranean coast and has been importing gas from Israel in order to re-export it. Yet even running at full tilt, its LNG plants can supply only 2% of Europe's total demand (and 6% of what it used to import from Russia).