According to reports in the Egyptian media, Egypt and Palestine have a covert arrangement in place to harvest gas from the Gaza Strip’s seas.
After several months of private bilateral negotiations, Egypt reportedly succeeded in persuading Israel to begin harvesting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, according to officials familiar with the Egyptian “Masrawy” website, which quoted the American “Monitor” website.
The agreement, according to the website, comes after years of Israeli opposition to natural gas extraction off the coast of Gaza for security grounds.
The field, which is located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of Gaza coast, was discovered in 2000 by British Gas (currently the BG Group) and is estimated to have more than one trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the Monitor.
On an American website, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee was quoted as saying that Egypt had informed the Palestinian Authority that Israel had given the go-ahead to begin extracting Palestinian gas off the coast of Gaza. He added that this came as a result of political pressure from European nations on Israel to find alternative sources of gas to Russian gas.
According to a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Egypt and Israel will oversee the extraction process, and this portion of the gas will be exported to Egypt. Israel will export the majority of the gas to Europe via Greece and Cyprus, while financial proceeds from the export of Palestinian gas will go to the Palestinian Authority’s treasury, with a portion of these proceeds going to support the Gaza economy.
It is noteworthy that the Federation of Contractors and Gas Contractors (“CCC”), an alliance of businesses authorised to develop the field, and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (“EGAS”) began discussions last year.
From Masrawy.
revealing the specifics of a deal Egypt and Palestine made to get gas out of Gaza
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