JERUSALEM: Shipments of Egyptian gas to Israel, which were due to resume on Thursday after an attack on a pipeline in Sinai, have been delayed until later in the month, one of the pipeline’s owners said.
Gas imports to Israel were halted as a precaution on Feb. 5 following an attack on a pipeline supplying Jordan.
Ampal-American Israel Corporation, which owns 12.5 percent of the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG) that owns the pipeline between the two neighbors, said supplies were "expected to resume late this month."
"The delay is due to a hold-up in repair work on a GASCO pipeline," it said in a statement, referring to infrastructure owned by the Egyptian National Gas Company.
In the attack, "a small part of a GASCO pipeline serving EMG was damaged as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in a metering station along a separate GASCO-owned and operated gas pipeline from Egypt to Jordan," Ampal said.
The damaged metering station is located 30 kilometers from the EMG-operated pipeline from Egypt’s Al-Arish to Ashkelon in southern Israel, the company said.
It remains unclear who carried out the attack, which coincided with an unprecedented wave of mass protests across Egypt that led last week to the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt supplies about 40 percent of Israel’s natural gas which is used to produce electricity. In December, four Israeli firms signed 20-year contracts worth up to $10 billion (€7.4 billion) to import Egyptian gas.
Egyptian activists had long campaigned against selling gas to Israel with prices cheaper than the world markets’. A court battle ended with a ruling that recommended a review of prices but left the decision in the hand of the ousted regime. –With additional reporting by Daily News Egypt.
