Danny Zaken
Globes, Feb. 8, 2023
“… within three years, the scale of exports to Europe would increase many times over and with it the tax royalties and levies for the state. We are talking about many billions that may be lost without direction from above, removing obstacles, high-level regional cooperation between leaders, and accelerated development.”
Growing demand for gas throughout Europe and worldwide following the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine has created a limited window of opportunity to export gas from the Middle East to Europe as well as to other countries like India and China.
In this situation, the governments of Israel, Egypt, Cyprus and Greece are striving to speed up handling the issue, and have formulated several different courses of action. Among other things, the governments intend building a new pipeline system that will carry gas from Israel and Cyprus to the liquefaction facilities in Egypt (which will also use the gas for domestic needs), building a liquefaction facility on the eastern shores of Cyprus, build a floating liquefaction facility as part of the expansion of the Leviathan field, and export gas to Europe using tankers.
The plan is to maximize the potential of Israel’s natural gas resources, within the window of time created by demand in Europe. An Israeli source familiar with the subject told “Globes,” “This has to happen as soon as possible, otherwise we will miss the opportunity and the delays so far have already created global skepticism about us.” … [To read the full article, click here]