Sunday, February 3, 2008

Failure of negotiations to supply Israel with natural gas from the first Palestinian field

Contributed by Lucia in Spain

"A new-old dispute has emerged to the surface at the height of the Israeli siege of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The parties to the dispute are Israel and British Gas (BG) which owns drilling rights in Palestinian wasters opposite the coast of Gaza in partnership with Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) and the Palestinian Investment Fund. The "Gaza Marine-1" field was discovered by BG in September 2000.....

Many reasons are behind the dispute between BG and Israel but the main one is about the means of transporting the gas from the gas field in the Palestinian regional water to the new power plant in Gaza. In 2001, BG presented a development plan to the Palestinian Authority to deliver the gas through a pipeline from the field some 36 kilometers off the Gaza coast directly to the power plant. The Palestinian Authority approved the plan in 2002 but Israel has insisted on linking the pipeline to the power plant in Askalan first and then extending it to Gaza....

Another reason is that Israel wants to know the exact amount of gas entering the Palestinian territories, hence the revenues earned by the Palestinian Authorities, and consequently the amount of money that can be transferred to finance "terrorism.".....

....The British company has many alternative options if its negotiations reach an impasse with Israel, including the export of some of the gas supplies to its liquid gas project in Egypt where additional volumes of gas are needed to complete the huge project there.
Needless to mention, Israel had objected to the exportation of Palestinian gas to Egypt in the past on the basis that the Gaza field falls within its sphere of influence which implies that the gas supplies should be supplied to its factories....."

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