On 25 July, Oil and Energy Ministers from Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, Israel, Palestine and Italy met in Alexandria to hold the second ministerial meeting of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. The meeting was also attended by the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the US Energy Secretary Rick Perry and a European Commission’s representative for energy and climate. The main goals of this forum are to create a regional gas market, reduce infrastructure costs and offer competitive prices, as the members decided in the first meeting of the organization, celebrated last January in Cairo. The EU announced on 6 August its strong support to the project, providing a direct grant of €500,000. On the sidelines of the meeting, the Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz announced that Israel will start exporting natural gas to Egypt by the end of the year.