Category:

Israel Steals Gaza’s Offshore Natural Gas

While Gazans suffer from daily power shutdowns, Israel is signing an important deal to sell gas to Jordan, gas which, researchers say, was stolen from Palestinians. In addition to confiscating Palestine’s energy resources, Israel has destroyed Gaza’s only power station in its latest military offensive. Photo: “Gaza electricity; ‘enemy of the (Jewish) state’” wrote the Middle East Online during the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead. While Gazans suffer from daily power shutdowns, Israel is signing an important deal to sell gas to Jordan, gas which, researchers say, was stolen from Palestinians. In addition to confiscating Palestine’s energy resources, Israel has destroyed Gaza’s only power station in its latest military offensive. On July 29, 2014, RT reported: Over a million people in Gaza could be without electricity after Israeli tank shells hit the fuel depot of the enclave’s only power station, causing it to shut down. Its director, Mohammed al-Sharif, said, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

U.S. government welcomes Israeli gas deal

Israel’s Delek Group, alongside U.S. energy company Noble Energy, signed the letter with the National Electric Power Co. of Jordan for natural gas deliveries from the Leviathan natural gas field off the Israeli cost. The U.S. State Department said it facilitated talks between the parties in February that led to the signing of a similar deal for gas from Israel’s offshore gas field, Tamar. Acting Special Envoy for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein was on hand for a signing ceremony for Leviathan, hosted by U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Alice Wells. "This letter of intent [on Leviathan] marks the beginning of the second phase of the project, and represents an important step towards promoting peace and prosperity in the Middle East by encouraging collaboration to overcome energy challenges," the State Department said in a Thursday statement. Leviathan, with an estimated 18 trillion cubic feet of gas, should go onstream in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Jordan secures gas exports from Israel

Israel’s Delek Group signed the letter with the National Electric Power Co. of Jordan. "The estimate scope of the binding agreement [outlined in the letter] is for the supply of an overall amount of 45 billion cubic meters [1.6 trillion cubic feet] over a period of 15 years," the Israeli company said. Jordan in the past has struggled to find a reliable source of natural gas in part because of downstream problems in Egypt. In February, Jordanian companies Arab Potash and Jordan Bromine secured a total gross quantity of 66 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the Tamar field, also located off the Israeli coast Leviathan, with an estimated 18 trillion cubic feet of gas, should go onstream in 2016. Much of the reserves from the offshore field are already designated for exports to regional customers. Tamar is estimated to hold as much as 10 trillion cubic feet […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Israel Plans to Sell Natural Gas to Jordan

A group of Israeli companies has signed a preliminary deal to export natural gas from the country’s offshore Leviathan field to Jordan. Reuters JERUSALEM—A group of Israeli energy companies said Wednesday they have signed a letter of intent to sell natural gas to a Jordanian power company, in a potentially multibillion-dollar deal that could strengthen ties between the two Middle East neighbors. The Israeli companies said they would supply 45 billion cubic meters of gas over 15 years from the offshore Leviathan field to Jordan’s state-owned National Electric Power Co. The companies—which include U.S.-based Noble Energy Inc. ‘s Noble Energy Mediterranean Ltd. unit, along with Israel’s Delek Drilling LP, Avner Oil Exploration LP and Ratio Oil Exploration LP—didn’t disclose the value of the deal. Delek Drilling and Avner declined to comment on the deal. Israeli media have reported that the deal is valued at roughly $15 billion. The Israeli […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Israel Nears Gas Sales to Egypt as Mideast Unrest Flares

In the midst of some of the worst Middle East tensions in a decade, one-time enemies Egypt and Israel are negotiating deals that may mean the sale of $60 billion in Israeli natural gas to liquefaction plants in Egypt. The talks come as Israel resumes air strikes on Gaza after Hamas, which the U.S. and the European Union classify as a terrorist group, fired rockets following a breakdown in Egypt’s efforts to broker a cease-fire. The move is all the more improbable because Egypt — little more than a year ago — was under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had begun to steer the country away from viewing Israel as a trading partner. Noble Energy Inc. (NBL) and units of Israel’s Delek Group Ltd. (DLEKG) plan to deliver as much as 6.25 trillion cubic feet of gas from the Tamar and Leviathan offshore fields to LNG facilities […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Iran leader calls for arming Gaza to fight Israel

Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday called on Muslims from around the world to help arm Gaza Palestinians in their fight against Israel. The call by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was his latest such message during the ongoing war between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel. Khamenei claims that while Israel and America seek to disarm Hamas, Iran says "the opposite … the Muslim World has a duty to arm the Palestinian nation by all means." Iran, a staunch Hamas ally, does not recognize Israel and supports militant anti-Israeli groups such as the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group. Iran does not recognize Israel and has considered the Jewish state its archenemy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed monarchy and brought clerics to power Khamenei spoke at a prayer ceremony in Tehran as Shiite Iranians marked the beginning of Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Israelis barely break stride under missile shield

Civilians take cover in an air raid shelter in Sderot, south Israel, as several rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip Several large booms rang out over Ashkelon, southern Israel, on Monday afternoon as Israel fired interceptor missiles from its Iron Dome defence system to destroy incoming rockets fired by militants in the Gaza Strip, 7km away. The sound has become common across Israel since it began its war in Gaza two weeks ago; people shopping near a crowded town centre shopping mall did not break their stride. More On this story On this topic IN Arab-Israel conflict As of Monday, Hamas and other Gaza-based militants had shot 154 rockets into Ashkelon, a seaside city of 137,000, since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge began. Of these, 85 were intercepted and blown to pieces mid-air by Iron Dome; one of the few that landed in a populated area where residents were […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Israeli Invasion of Gaza Is Likely, Official Says; Brief Cease-Fire Is Set

TEL AVIV — Even as Israel and Hamas agreed to suspend hostilities briefly on Thursday at the request of the United Nations, a senior Israeli military official said that his government was increasingly likely to order a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip that it had hoped to avoid. Though Israel initially set limited goals of halting the rocket assaults against it and degrading Hamas, the Islamist movement that dominates Gaza, the group’s tenacity and surprisingly deep arsenal have led to widespread calls to expand the mission. The military official said only “boots on the ground” could eradicate terrorism from Gaza and indicated that Israel was even considering a long-term reoccupation of the coastal territory. But with the Palestinian death toll reaching 214 on Wednesday, Israel and the Gaza militants agreed to end the violence for five hours on Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For Israel, it […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Israel to reap rewards of gas reserves

Israel will be able to reap the benefits of energy independence through growing gas reserves at the offshore Leviathan gas field, a development executive said. The partners developing the giant Leviathan offshore gas field said an audit by Dutch consulting company Sewell and Associates put the reserve estimate at 21.9 trillion cubic feet, up from the previous estimate of around 18.9 trillion cubic feet. Gideon Tadmor, board chairman at Delek Drilling and chief executive officer at Avner Oil Exploration — two of the project’s developers — said the revision "will ensure us energy independence for decades to come, and an expansion of export options, with all the accompanying economic and geopolitical benefits." Leviathan should go onstream in 2016, with much of the offshore field’s reserves already designated for exports to regional customers. Noble Energy, another drilling partner, this year signed export contracts for gas from the Leviathan and nearby […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Egypt Would Approve BG’s Israel Gas Deal If Local Demand is Met

Egypt is willing to approve a potential deal allowing BG Group PLC to import natural gas from Israel for its local facility if the parties involved agree to help meet the country’s domestic demand at a reasonable price, officials familiar with the matter said Monday. "Things are different in Egypt now and we see no issue in this deal if it is beneficial for the country," a senior oil official told The Wall Street Journal, referring to the recent change in government in Egypt that saw Abdel Fattah Al Sisi elected president. "We will give our approval on the deal if some of the gas is fed to the domestic market and is reasonably priced," the official said. The partners in Israel’s giant Leviathan natural gas field said last month they had signed a preliminary agreement with BG Group, a British oil and gas company, to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple