The East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG) aims to start transmitting 150m cubic feet of natural gas per day (scf/day) from the fields of Delek and Noble in the Mediterranean to the Egyptian liquefaction factories by June after finishing the inspection of the pipeline to ensure its technical safety.
A petroleum sector source told Daily News Egypt that the Israeli natural gas shipments will be directed to liquefaction factories, and will increase to 700m scf/day within two years.
He added that the settlement of the arbitration cases filed by the Israeli side against Egypt was done before the gas export agreement from Delek and Noble was sealed.
The International Chamber of Commerce in Geneva issued a ruling requiring EGAS and the General Petroleum Corporation in December 2015 to pay a compensation to the East Mediterranean Gas Company for $288m, and $1.7bn to the Israel Electricity Company after Cairo’s decision to suspend exporting gas to Tel Aviv in April 2012.
Egyptian Dolphinus was the party to contract with Delek and Noble to transmit gas through the EMG, of which 39% was acquired.
Mohamed Shoaib, the CEO of the company, said in a previous statement that the share acquired by the EMG is owned by investors who are involved in the international arbitration cases filed against Egypt.
Shoaib stressed that Egypt will not be paying any amounts of money in the settlement of the arbitration filed by the EMG.
Furthermore, Shoaib said that in case of an increased amount of gas planned to be transmitted from Israel to Egypt beyond the 700m scf/day, which is the line’s capacity, the gas line directed to Jordan will be used.
The East Mediterranean gas pipeline extends on a distance of 90km and is located in the Mediterranean. It connects Israel’s pipeline network from Ashkelon to the Egyptian pipeline near Arish.
Egypt has the EDCO and Damietta liquefaction factories with an export capacity of 1.88bn scf/day, in addition to a national grid for gas transfer in the country with a capacity of 9bn scf/day.
