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Photo: Ronny Shitzer
Israel one step closer to getting natural gas from Egypt
Photo: Ronny Shitzer
Egypt's intelligence chief met Israel's infrastructures minister last week to discuss the issue

Egyptian gas deal signed

Israel to acquire Egyptian natural gas through agreement between Egypt and joint energy firm after years of talks stymied by violence

TEL AVIV – An Israeli-Egyptian pipeline company has signed a deal to purchase natural gas from Egypt for more than NIS 20 billion and sell some of it to Israel, officials said on Sunday, ending more than a decade of negotiations continuously stalled by violence.

 

Eastern Mediterranean Gas, the Israeli-Egyptian pipeline company in which Yossi Meiman's company Merhav is a partner, secured an agreement last week in Cairo with Egypt’s Oil Minister and two Egyptian energy firms, to buy seven meters of natural gas from Egypt annually.

 

It plans to sell 1.7 million meters of the gas to Israel’s Electric Corporation and is expected to export the rest to Turkey, Greece and other countries in Europe.

EMG is also conducting negotiations with other Israeli energy companies in a bid to sell its gas to them as well. Meiman owns a 25 percent stake in EMG, while Egyptian oil tycoon Hussein Salam owns 65 percent of it and the Egyptian government holds the remaining 10 percent.


Years of negotiations

The deal follows more than a decade of negotiations between Israeli and Egyptian officials.

Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman had spoken with National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer last week in Israel to discuss a USD 2.5 billion agreement between EMG and the Electric Corporation, a ministry source said last week.

 

Israel wants to use natural gas to replace fuel oil that powers its three major electric plants in the country and aims for natural gas to make up about a quarter of its the total energy basket.

 

Working off a business initiative from the mid-1990s, Egypt had initially agreed in 1999 to sell Israel natural gas through what then Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office dubbed a "pipeline of peace." Talks froze periodically as a result of Israeli-Palestinian violence

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.19.05, 16:27
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