Arabs48.com reported Reuters as saying on Wednesday, that Egypt’s Petroleum Minister Sharif Ismail has played down Israeli fears that Egypt might end potential Israeli-Egyptian deals to export Israeli gas to Egypt.
According to Reuters, the discovery of the Zohr natural gas field off the Egyptian coast will not undermine private-sector negotiations about buying gas from Israel.
“Any negotiations between private companies in Egypt and in the eastern Mediterranean, and by this I mean Israel and Cyprus, will not stop,” Ismail told Reuters, “these negotiations and initial agreements are ongoing.”
The Italian energy company Eni announced on Sunday the discovery of about 30 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Zohr field. It is expected to be the largest such discovery in the world.
This has raised concerns in Israel that it would lose its agreement to supply gas to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Egypt.
Following Ismail’s comments, the sentiment on the Israeli stock market, where leading energy companies on Monday suffered losses of more than 4.5 billion shekels ($1.1 billion) after news of the Zohr discovery, was improved.
Gas produced from the Zohr field will flow to Egypt, including Eni’s share, Ismail said, suggesting Cairo has no export plans from Zohr.
Eni is expected to deliver a development plan by the end of October detailing the number of wells it will dig, and production will likely begin at the start of 2018, the minister said.
It is worth mentioning that Eldad Tamir, the Founder and CEO of the Tamir Fishman Investment Group, said that it is early to comment on the news of the Egyptian gas find, but he insisted that it is “bad news” for Israel.
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