DMEA: Israel sees Egypt’s LNG capacity as reason for continued co-operation

Israel will continue to work with Egypt to boost natural gas exports to Europe, as the latter country is its best option for producing LNG, Energy Minister Karine Elharrar told Israel Hayom in an interview published on August 12.

Elharrar explained that Israel’s caretaker government, led by the Yesh Atid party, had been willing to join with Brussels and Cairo in mid-June in signing a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) on expanding gas supplies to Europe because of the access that Israel had already gained to Egypt’s LNG plants. Co-operation with Egypt allows Israel to overcome its lack of a midstream connection to European gas markets, she said.

“We have no gas pipeline [to Europe]. We can only pipe gas to Egypt and Jordan,” she told Israel Hayom. “To pipe gas to Europe, the gas needs to be liquefied, and Egypt can do that. We don’t have the machines. We’ll pipe a larger quantity of gas to Egypt, and it will be shipped to Europe via Egypt.”