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Israel signs deal for $1.1 billion thermo-solar power plant

Israel signed a deal to build a 4 billion shekel ($1.05 billion) thermo-solar power plant in the country’s south, aimed at boosting electricity production from renewable energy sources, the Finance Ministry said on Sunday. The 121 megawatt plant, which will also be able to store electricity, will be built by a consortium of Israel’s Shikun & Binui and Spain’s Abengoa in Ashalim in Israel’s southern Negev desert near another solar plant. The plant, to be built under a build, operate and transfer program, is expected to come online in the first half of 2018, the ministry said. Both plants – along with a planned photovoltaic power plant nearby – will provide 2 percent of total electricity production in Israel, which has a target of 10 percent coming from renewable sources by 2020. They will be financed by the European Investment Bank and the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. The […]

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Israel won’t strike Iran alone, no matter how much it hates the nuclear deal

Tags: AIR STRIKES | Benjamin Netanyahu | Iran | Iran Nuclear Deal | Israel An Israeli F-16 fighter jet takes off at Ramon air base in southern Israel during routine training, October 21, 2013. REUTERS/Amir Cohen The day after a nuclear deal with Iran was announced, the sun rose high above Jerusalem’s shimmering hills just as it does every July, as if the ancient land shrugged off two decades of apocalyptic warnings from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and decided to go about its usual routine. Israeli officials across the political landscape decried the “very bad deal,” as Netanyahu termed the agreement, which the United States and five world powers hope will curb Iran’s weaponization of its nuclear program. But no one, not even the prime minister, rattled the sabers of war. “An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites is no longer a relevant scenario,” wrote Amos Harel, military […]

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Netanyahu May Turn Iran Defeat to His Favor

Photo The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel delivered joint statements on Iran in Jerusalem on Thursday. Credit Pool photo by Debbie Hill JERUSALEM — Israeli commentators have described this week’s Iran nuclear deal as a “personal failure,” a “stinging failure,” and a “colossal failure” for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . Yair Lapid, a rival who heads an opposition faction in Israel ’s Parliament, called it “the greatest failure in foreign policy of any Israeli prime minister since the state’s establishment” and demanded his ouster. Mr. Netanyahu has framed his career over two decades around Iran , and battered Israel ’s critical alliance with the United States by alienating President Obama with his aggressive approach. Since the deal was announced, he has seemed lifeless, gray, even in deep despair during public appearances this week, analysts said. Yet there is little indication Mr. […]

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Israeli Gas Boon Blocks Out Solar Industry Hopes

TARABIN, Israel—The residents of this village in the Negev desert have everything they need to build a solar-panel field: construction permits and loans, a contract with a company to build the field, and plenty of sun. But Tarabin village doesn’t yet have permission from the government to sell its solar power to the national grid—a crucial prerequisite for making the project economical. Dozens of communities across Israel are in the same situation, and executives and backers of the solar industry here are blaming an unlikely culprit: natural gas. Two big offshore gas finds in 2009 and 2010 shifted priorities and resources away from solar projects, they say. Shortly after, the government stopped approving the hookup of new solar projects to the grid. That has left villages like Tarabin waiting. It has also devastated the small, once-promising solar-power industry here. The proposed site for the field outside of town here […]

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Israeli gas exports could start up in 2-3 years

A framework for Israel’s gas sector, released Tuesday, would allow neighboring countries to receive offshore gas within 2-3 years by allowing exports from Tamar prior to the Leviathan field coming on line in 2019. Egypt and Jordan need gas and it was in Israel’s strategic interest to supply them, energy and water minister Yuval Steinitz told reporters. Last year the Tamar consortium — Delek Drilling, Noble Energy, Avner Oil and Gas, Isramco and Alon Gas Exploration — signed a letter of intent with Spain’s Union Fenosa for the sale of 4.5 Bcm annually for 15 years for its SEGAS LNG plant at Damietta, Egypt. Israeli energy industry sources said talks have resumed in recent weeks about signing a final agreement with Union Fenosa. One of the key elements of the framework, designed to end an impasse that has held up development of the huge field, is to foster competition […]

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Israel moves to ease offshore gas logjam

The Israeli government has declared development of natural gas to be an issue of national security in a move aimed at easing an antitrust logjam in place since last December. The security cabinet voted unanimously on June 25 to take administrative steps sidestepping a review by Antitrust Commissioner David Gilo into whether holdings in large gas fields offshore Israel by Delek Group and Noble Energy Inc. constitute a “restrictive agreement” under Israeli law. Gilo’s study stymied gas development, most importantly of giant, deepwater Leviathan field. Allocation of future Leviathan supply between domestic and export markets is one of several controversies related to offshore gas development in Israel ( OGJ Online, Feb. 20, 2015 ). The security cabinet move allows the government to consider a compromise agreement under which Delek and Avner Oil Exploration, a subsidiary, would sell their interests in producing Tamar gas field within 6 years as well […]

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Senior Israeli Official Asks Washington to Extend Iran Nuclear Talks

WASHINGTON—Israel’s point man on Iran pressed the Obama administration this week to extend nuclear negotiations with Tehran beyond the June 30 deadline, rather than signing a deal his government fears could prove fatal to Israel’s long-term security. Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, in an interview on Friday, said his government believes parameters of a deal that global powers reached with Iran in April provided numerous loopholes for Tehran to exploit if it seeks to become a nuclear power. Mr. Steinitz, a close aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, specifically cited terms that allow Iran to continue to conduct some research and development on more advanced centrifuge machines, which are used to produce nuclear fuel. He also said there aren’t enough guarantees in the proposed agreement to ensure Iran will allow international inspectors real-time access to suspect nuclear and military sites. Mr. Steinitz added the agreement must be strengthened to […]

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Israel bombs Gaza sites after rocket attack claimed by Islamic State sympathizer

GAZA Israel retaliated on Thursday for rockets fired at it from Gaza with bombing raids against three militant training camps, and a radical group sympathetic with Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks on Israel. Witnesses and medics said the predawn attacks on two camps belonging to Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip, and to the smaller Palestinian group Islamic Jihad caused some damage but no casualties. Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement that Israel held Hamas responsible for the rocket attacks from Gaza "even if those doing the shooting are rogue gangs from global jihadi groups trying to challenge Hamas by shooting at us". The rockets aimed at the Israeli city of Ashkelon and town of Netivot on Wednesday night were the second such attacks in the past week. They broke a hiatus in cross-border fire since a 50-day Israeli war with Hamas ended with […]

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Nuclear Move Stands to Lift U.S.-Israel Ties

ENLARGE Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in the parliament in Jerusalem earlier this month during a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. Photo: jim hollander/European Pressphoto Agency Israeli officials criticized the Obama administration last week when they thought the U.S. was about to support a United Nations conference on nuclear weapons in the Middle East—with or without Israel’s participation or consent. But by Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Secretary of State John Kerry and praised the White House for instead blocking the proposed meeting, which might have pressured Israel to disclose its presumed nuclear-arms program. “The United States kept its commitment to Israel by preventing a Middle East resolution that would single out Israel and ignore its security interests,” said a senior Israeli official briefed on the call, which was confirmed by U.S. officials. Israel’s diplomatic U-turn over the weekend shined a […]

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Jordan cleared for Israeli gas deliveries

Israeli government gives support to 2014 agreement to ship offshore natural gas to Jordan. Photo by James Jones Jr./Shutterstock TEL AVIV, Israel, April 7 (UPI) — A 2014 agreement to ship natural gas from the Tamar field off the coast of Israel to Jordan was backed by the Israeli government, an operator said Tuesday. Jordanian companies Arab Potash and Jordan Bromine secured a total gross quantity of 66 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the Tamar field, located off the Israeli coast, last year. "It should be noted that this agreement includes a number of other prerequisites, which are mainly other regulatory approvals by relevant bodies in Israel and Jordan," the company added. Jordan in the past has struggled to find a reliable source of natural gas in part because of downstream problems in Egypt. The partners managing Tamar estimate the field holds as much as 10 trillion […]

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