Cyprus in the Crosshairs: Iran's Energy War Reaches Eastern Mediterranean Gas Fields
By Bosphorus News Energy Desk
Leviathan Goes Dark
On March 1, Israel's Energy Ministry ordered the suspension of production at the Leviathan gas field, the country's largest offshore asset operated by Chevron. The order followed the launch of joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran under Operation Epic Fury. Chevron declared force majeure, formally notifying contract partners that it could not meet supply obligations due to circumstances beyond its control. Energean, operator of the Karish field, evacuated personnel.
The cessation of gas supply to Jordan and Egypt via pipeline was confirmed by both governments. Jordan relies on Israeli gas for approximately 85 percent of its natural gas imports, which are critical for electricity generation.
Egypt, which signed a landmark 15-year, $35 billion supply agreement with Leviathan in 2025, activated contingency plans to source replacement LNG at roughly double the price of piped Israeli gas.
This is not the first time the field has gone dark under Iranian pressure. During Israel's June 2025 conflict with Iran, production at Leviathan and Karish was stopped once again, sharply reducing exports to Egypt. A similar shutdown during the 2023 Gaza war lasted a month and cut exports, highlighting the structural vulnerability of the route.
The pattern is now established. The question is what happens if this time the shutdown extends beyond weeks.
The BTC Connection
The threat extends beyond the offshore fields themselves. On March 3, an IRGC adviser declared that Tehran would target what he described as enemies' oil supply lines and would not allow oil exports to continue. Senior Arab sources told Middle East Eye that the statement could only refer to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports crude from Azerbaijan to Israel via Turkey and accounts for close to 30 percent of Israel's oil supply.
That threat moved from words to action within days. On March 7, Azerbaijan said it had foiled an IRGC-directed plot to sabotage the BTC pipeline using more than seven kilograms of C-4 explosives smuggled into the country by two Iranian citizens and one Azerbaijani national acting on IRGC instructions.
The Middle East Institute identified the BTC pipeline as a particularly vulnerable asset for Türkiye, noting that Iran's overarching strategy appears to be expanding the conflict across the region and disrupting trade and energy flows to raise the cost of war for the United States and its partners.
The pipeline terminates at Ceyhan on Türkiye's Mediterranean coast, placing it directly within the Eastern Mediterranean energy corridor that also connects to Cyprus's offshore blocks.
Aphrodite: A Different Equation
While Leviathan operates under the protection of Israel's dedicated naval defence posture, including missile boats equipped with naval Iron Dome variants and submarine surveillance, Cyprus's Aphrodite field faces a fundamentally different security equation.
France's deployment of air defence assets to Cyprus was explicitly described by analysts as providing a maritime and air defence layer that Cyprus cannot generate alone, including persistent radar horizon extension and the ability to provide defended maritime space for commercial shipping.
That deployment was assembled for base and island defence following the Akrotiri drone strike, not for the protection of offshore energy infrastructure 170 kilometres out to sea.
Cyprus's existing air defence inventory includes the Israeli-made Barak MX system alongside Tor-M1 and Buk-M1 units, with short-range coverage from Mistral MANPADS and Skyguard systems. Its naval force consists of offshore patrol vessels and fast patrol boats, with missions focused on coastal defence and EEZ surveillance.
None of these assets are configured or positioned for the protection of deep-water offshore platforms against cruise missiles or drone swarms.
Aphrodite is not yet in production. Chevron, as operator, has a timetable for first gas by 2030 following a final investment decision expected in 2027. The field holds an estimated 3.5 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas and is planned to export via pipeline to Egypt.
The development plan approved in February 2025 involves a floating production unit above the reservoir — a fixed surface installation with no organic protection in contested waters.
Chevron's $2.36 Billion Bet, Reconsidered
The backdrop to all of this is a major investment commitment made weeks before hostilities began. In January 2026, Chevron and its partners approved a $2.36 billion final investment decision to expand Leviathan's production capacity from 12 billion cubic metres to roughly 21 billion cubic metres annually.
Chevron also holds stakes in Tamar off Israel and Aphrodite off Cyprus, placing the company across the three most exposed gas assets in the Eastern Mediterranean under a single operator.
Iran's broader strategy in the conflict has combined strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure with pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, targeting Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery, forcing Qatar to suspend LNG production, and attacking shipping, in what ACLED describes as an effort to raise costs and shake confidence rather than achieve outright destruction.
Applied to the Eastern Mediterranean, that same logic points directly at Leviathan, Tamar, and the undeveloped platforms off Cyprus.
Major news organisations have reported the field shutdowns. The link between those shutdowns, the BTC sabotage plot, and the specific exposure of Cyprus's undeveloped offshore blocks has received little attention. At least for now...
***This report draws on Janes, Middle East Forum, Middle East Eye, Reuters, ACLED, Arab Center DC, Army Recognition, Al Jazeera, and the Middle East Institute. Production and reserves figures reflect pre-conflict data. Current operational status of individual fields may have changed.