On January 20, Mr was sworn in for the second time as president of the . No one expected his tenure to be predictable, even with the facts of his first presence in the White House.
In this climate of nervous anticipation, the phrase “drill, baby, drill” was variously commented on, but almost unnoticed was the creation of a mighty new structure, now showing its teeth to the outside world. This is the National Energy Dominance Council, which Trump established on February 14, installed in the White House and today is considered the equivalent of the US National Security Council. So great is his power and influence.
The role of the new structure and Greece
Of all the states, Greece was the one that paid the least attention to the new structure of the US government, because it was preoccupied with repairing its relations with the Trump system and with the US president himself, who does not show much sympathy for those who got on his privileged bandwagon Joe Biden. It took several visits to America for the Minister of Environment and Energy to realize Stavros Papastavrou the size of the National Energy Dominance Council and its role in the new Trump administration.
Its president is the Minister of the Interior Doug Berghamwho visited our country in September, and the vice president is the Minister of Energy Chris Wrightwhich is expected in early November in Athens. Its remaining members consist of the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Defense, Agriculture, Trade, Transport, the Attorney General, and among others the three assistants to the president for Economic Policy, for National Security and for domestic policy. In total, he has 18 high-ranking members of the Trump administration.
Chevron and contacts in the US
In March, when he was sworn in as Chevron minister in hand and with the urgent need to proceed with the tender. He immediately discussed the matter with the prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the foreign minister George Gerapetritis and the tender for the plots south of Crete became an immediate priority. The decision was made, but the matter was not so simple. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there were resistances, because some diplomats estimated that it would cause unnecessary tension with Turkey, which would perceive it as a trifle against the Turkish-Libyan memorandum. But the American side also wanted to see tangible developments. “If you issue the necessary ministerial decisions in 30 days, we are waiting for you in Houston” was the curt response of the Chevron vice president Liz Swartzwhen the Minister of Energy contacted her.
The road race that began after that March 26 phone call paid off nearly two months later, in early May, during the visit of St. Papastavros and the Deputy Minister of Energy Nikos Tsafos at Chevron facilities. It is self-evident that the ministerial decisions had been issued, while Papastavrou-Bergam had already been contacted by phone. In the meantime, Trump’s meeting with more than 12 oil and gas industry executives took place at the White House on March 19, and they got the green light to proceed with investments. In the USA, Papastavrou and Tsafos met with the president of Chevron Clay Neffwith the vice president of Exxon Mobile John Ardill and with the vice president of Cheniere Energy Anatole Feiginbut also with Wright and Bergham. A bond began to form based on mutual interests.
Libya and the key supplier scenarios
and Exxon Mobile are the two companies that have expressed interest in all the fields of the Eastern Mediterranean, which creates a new reality in the region. For this reason the Greek side did not overreact when on May 27, which was published as an official document on July 1. In the attached document with their own sea plots the Libyans were not violating the median line. Moreover, at the beginning of March they had also visited Houston for talks with the two companies and beyond the protest they did not want to spoil the good investment climate.
The May meeting with Bergam was revealing for the Greek delegation. Instead of half an hour as planned, it lasted an hour and a half. During it, St. Papastavrou raised the question of possible cooperation between the US and Russia with the aim of making the two countries the sole suppliers of natural gas to Europe, a scenario that was also captured in the “Financial Times”. But the reverse was also discussed, that the US would want to become the sole supplier. “What’s the matter?” the Greek minister was interested to know. The answer he received was that in the Trump environment both views were being floated by equal numbers of groups and that, at that stage, neither had prevailed.
Europe’s gateway to US LNG
The following period was published in the EU gazette, Greece’s response to Libya sent to the UN was announced and the Gastech conference, the world’s largest for natural gas, LNG and hydrogen, took place in Milan. There Bergam convened a closed meeting with major natural gas companies, to which only Greece and the head of the Commission’s Directorate General for Energy were invited at governmental level. Dite Jorgensen. Bergum then traveled with St. Papastavrou, whose expectations for the competition were revived, for Athens. Indeed, the next day, September 10, the tender was concluded with the expression of interest from the Chevron and Helleniq Energy consortium and Bergam visited the American LNG facilities in Revythoussa. Two weeks later, St. Papastavrou met with his American counterpart, Chris Wright, and K. Mitsotakis with the vice president of Exxon Mobile on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
In the meantime, the group pushing against cooperation with Russia prevailed in the White House, and Greece suddenly became for the US government a preferred energy partner and gateway for US LNG to Europe. Turkey, on the other hand, is a big buyer of energy, which is why Trump asked him Tayyip Erdogan during their meeting at the White House to stop supplying natural gas from Russia. The US asked the EU to do the same, and on October 20 the EU Council of Energy Ministers decided to make Europe independent of Russian natural gas by 2028.
Also, it was decided that it would be considered to be of Russian origin, unless proven beyond reasonable doubt. This means that several European countries will have to turn to the vertical axis, and the first reactions have already been expressed by the Slovaks and Hungarians, who protested the high price of American LNG. It also means that new, very large FSRU infrastructure, pipelines, etc. are required, and the dominant countries at the moment are Greece and Bulgaria.
