Israeli Gas Is Great – for Egypt and Jordan - HAARETZ

Jan 09, 2020 1:34 PM

Eran Azran

Leviathan gas reserve was billed a 'national project'. It's now online but 85% of the gas will go to Egypt, Jordan for a lower price than Israelis pay

The development of Israel’s massive Leviathan offshore gas reserve was presented to the public as a national project, but some 85% of the gas it contains is slated to be sold to Egypt and Jordan – for a lower price than the Israel Electric Corporation is currently paying.

The partners in Leviathan – Israel’s Delek Drilling and Ratio, and the U.S.-based Noble Energy, announced Monday that the extraction infrastructure was complete and that gas sales were set to begin.

The Leviathan reserve was discovered about a decade ago. Preparing the site for extraction cost some $3.6 billion and took nearly three years.

Leviathan gas begins flowing to Jordan - GLOBES

Yuval Steinitz, Israel's energy minister

2 Jan, 2020 9:02

Jordan's National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) has said that the experimental supply of natural gas by US-based Noble Energy Inc. started as of yesterday. "The experimental pumping, which will last three months, is aimed at testing the infrastructure prior to the actual commercial supply," NEPCO added.

NEPCO continued, "The gas supply is in line with an agreement signed between the two companies in 2016. Under the agreement, Noble Energy will provide gas worth $15 billion dollars to the Kingdom for a period of 15 years, or 300 million cubic feet on a daily basis."

No mention in NEPCO's statement was made of either Israel or Leviathan because the agreement to buy Israeli gas is unpopular with many in Jordan. Last year Jordan's parliament scrap the deal.

Electrical equipment of Israel-Jordan gas line torched - THE JERUSALEM POST

DECEMBER 29, 2019 10:31
Tzvi Joffre

Two electrical transformers servicing a gas transfer station intended to transport gas from the Leviathan natural gas field in Israel into Jordan were torched by unidentified people in Irbid in northern Jordan on Saturday.

According to Sky News Arabia, this is not the first attack against the gas transfer station in Irbid. Gas flow through the station is expected to start in the next few days.

Jordanian citizens and politicians have expressed protest to the planned transfer of gas between the two nations.

On Sunday, Jordan's parliament filed an urgent memo, requesting that a law be drafted to ban the import of gas from Israel, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Dozens of activists held a protest in front of the parliament, calling for a cancellation of the gas trade deal.

Will Leviathan cut energy prices, increase competition? - GLOBES

23 Dec, 2019 19:30
Amiram Barkat and Yuval Azulai

Gas is about to begin flowing from the huge offshore Israeli gas field, on time and within budget. But will it benefit Israeli consumers?

The Leviathan natural gas field is set to begin streaming gas to the Israeli coast tomorrow, an event that the government and the reservoir's developers are calling historic. Almost six years since the Tamar field was connected, Leviathan will become the second major gas field connected to the Israeli coast. Nine years have passed since the discovery of the gas and the beginning of the supply, compared with only three years for the Tamar field.

Most of the gas that will begin flowing tomorrow is for exports to the Jordan Electric Power Company, and in another month also to private customers in Egypt. Commencing in another week, gas will also flow to the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC). The fact that residents near the coastal terminal will be exposed to potential health damage caused by gas, most of which is for export, is arousing criticism from residents in the Hadera region. However, the flow of gas to Jordan and Egypt has been portrayed by the Netanyahu government as an important geopolitical and political interest. In the name of this interest, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bypassed the authority of the Israel Antitrust Authority director general at the time, and signed in his place, as Minister of the Economy and Industry (after Aryeh Deri, the previous minister, resigned) an exemption for an agreement in restraint of trade for Noble Energy and Delek Group, for the deal to buy the rights to area where the Leviathan reservoir is located.

Netanyahu's signature on the exemption was part of the general arrangement for the gas production sector, referred to as the gas plan. The plan aroused strong opposition at the time, involving the assertion that the state was perpetuating the monopoly of Delek Group and Noble Energy in the Israeli gas market, and forcing electricity consumers to continue paying the excessive gas price that IEC agreed to pay for the gas it was buying from the Tamar reservoir. Netanyahu stood firm against the protest with unqualified support for the plan devised by the professional staff in his government. In an extraordinary step, Netanyahu appeared before the Knesset Economic Committee and the Supreme Court justices to defend the gas plan. They were not impressed by his appearance, and struck down the all-encompassing stability clause in the original plan.

Completion of Leviathan's development is an appropriate time to assess what the gas plan achieved since it went into effect, and where it has failed.

NEPCO signs gas supply agreements - THE JORDAN TIMES

Sep 17,2019

AMMAN — The National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) and the Jordanian-Egyptian FAJR for Natural Gas Transmission and Supply Company on Tuesday signed two agreements with two companies to provide them with natural gas.

The first agreement stipulates providing the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) with a daily supply of four million cubic feet of natural gas, while the other deal is an amendment to a gas provision agreement with the Nuqul Group, according to a statement by the Ministry of Energy.

Energy Minister Hala Zawati said that the ministry effortlessly work to reduce the costs of energy bills through encouraging local industries to shift to natural gas, as part of the government’s endeavours to help these industries reduce operational costs and increase their competitiveness in the local and international markets.

Zawati said that using natural gas will contribute to lowering the energy costs in factories by 25 to 55 per cent, depending on the type of the fuel replaced with the natural gas.

Natural Gas From Israel to Jordan in 2020 - ALBAWABA

July 6, 2018 - 07:30 GMT

Work is under way to construct a pipeline to transfer $10 billion worth of natural gas from Israel into Jordan, with supplies expected to begin in 2020, said a government official.

Contractors are currently working on building a 65-kilometre pipeline that stretches from the Kingdom’s borders with Israel in the north to Mafraq Governorate.

The pipeline, once completed, will be connected to the gas pipeline in Mafraq, and gas will later be distributed to the country's power plants for generation of electricity, Abdel Fattah Daradkeh, director general of the National Electric Power Company (NEPCO), told The Jordan Times in an interview this week.

“The pipeline will be completed by the end of 2019 and we were informed by Noble Energy that gas will start flowing to Jordan in early 2020,” the official added.

Work is also ongoing to build a pipeline on the Israeli side to transfer the gas to Jordan, he added.

Jordan pipeline for Israeli gas set for completion by end of 2019 - WORLD OIL / BLOOMBERG

JULY/4/2018
Mohammad Tayseer, Yaacov Benmeleh

TEL AVIV (Bloomberg) -- A pipeline to transport $10 billion worth of natural gas over 15 years from Israel’s Leviathan field into Jordan will be completed by the end of 2019, according to the company buying the fuel.

Engineers building a 65-km (40-mi) pipeline from Jordan’s border with Israel northward across Mafraq province will finish their work on time to receive first gas from Leviathan at the start of 2020, Abdel Fattah Daradkeh, director general of Jordan’s National Electric Power Co., said in a phone interview. A section of pipeline to move gas from the offshore field through Israel to the border is also under construction, he said.

After years of legal and regulatory logjams, the companies developing Leviathan are making significant progress to honor multi-billion-dollar export deals. About 54% of the nearly $4-billion Leviathan project has been completed, the companies said this week. Jordan, with negligible energy resources of its own, would become Israel’s first buyer for gas from the Mediterranean reservoir.

Jordan is Key Player in Israel's Energy Equation in Region - ALBAWABA NEWS

May 17th, 2018 - 18:00 GMT

Jordan is a key player in Israel's energy equation in the region as it could either make or break the Jordan-Israeli gas sales and purchase agreement that is vital to Israel's success as a regional energy player, according to the director of hydrocarbons at the Paris-based Mediterranean Energy Observatory (OME).

In September 2016, U.S.' Noble Energy, the operator of Israel's Leviathan gas field, signed a gas sales and purchase agreement with Jordan's National Electric Power Company Ltd. (NEPCO) to sell approximately three billion cubic meters of natural gas over a 15-year term.

"If Jordan cancels the gas deal signed with Israel following Israel's brutality in the Gaza Strip, there is no place for its gas to go, therefore, Israel can suffer huge losses in terms of energy income," Director Sohbet Karbuz told Anadolu Agency in an exclusive interview.

The deal in September 2016 was agreed despite widespread disapproval in Jordan for the purchase of Israel's energy. The past two years saw a number of popular demonstrations in Jordan's capital Amman against the proposed import of gas from the Jewish state.

Karbuz explained that Jordan is the most important market that these companies rely on to recover the billions of dollars of investments that these companies have made.

Giving gas for bilateral relations in the Middle East - JERUSALEM POST

MAY 6, 2018 10:26
Amir Foster

Within a short space of time, natural gas reserves on a scale of over 1,000 BCM were found in Israel’s economic waters alone.

The historic gas export agreement reported in February by the Tamar and Leviathan gas partnerships for exporting 64 BCM natural gas to Egypt is in the clear geopolitical interests of Israel and the entire region. The agreement signed with Dolphinus Holdings Limited to supply gas in Egypt, which joins an agreement signed in 2016 between the Leviathan partnership and the Jordanian national electric company NEPCO, is a step up in strategic relations between Israel and its neighbors, and enhances the key role of the Israeli gas industry, not only in the economic and environmental arena, but also in the regional geopolitical arena.

The story of Israeli gas exports begins at the end of 2009, when the Israeli economy was taken by surprise.

For the first time in the country’s history, a large natural gas reservoir (311 BCM) was found in Israel’s deep sea. The previously held thesis that the State of Israel had no choice but to rely entirely on importing energy sources was overturned.

However, even this impressive discovery did not prepare the Israeli economy for what would happen in the following two or three years.

The discovery of Tamar, in practice, opened up a new play for gas and oil exploration in the region, and led to a series of exceptional successes, foremost among them the discovery of the huge Leviathan reservoir (more than 600 BCM), the largest deepwater natural gas find in two decades, in addition to other significant finds, among them the Karish-Tanin reservoir, and Aphrodite in the economic waters of Cyprus, close to the borders of Israel’s economic waters.

Leviathan partners say all conditions met to supply natgas to Jordan - REUTERS

MARCH 7, 2018 / 10:34 AMReporting by Steven Scheer, Editing by Tova Cohen

TEL AVIV, March 7 (Reuters) - The partners in Israel’s offshore natural gas field Leviathan said on Wednesday that all conditions have been met to allow the supply of gas to Jordan’s electric company.

They said the capacity of the pipeline that will connect to Jordan via a direct pipeline and one that runs via Egypt would allow the flow of up to 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

Partners sign deal to export $15 billion in Israeli natgas to Egypt - REUTERS

FEBRUARY 19, 2018 / 2:42 PMReporting by Tova Cohen and Ari Rabinovitch

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - The partners in Israel’s Tamar and Leviathan natural gas fields have signed 10-year agreements to sell $15 billion worth of natural gas to Egyptian company Dolphinus, Delek Drilling said on Monday.

Various possibilities for transmission of the gas to Egypt are being examined, including use of the East Mediterranean Gas pipeline. Delek Drilling and its partner, Texas-based Noble Energy, intend to begin negotiations with EMG for the use of the pipeline to Egypt, Delek said in a statement.

Jordan allocates initial $2 million for joint pipeline project with Israel - MIDDLE EAST MONITOR

January 2, 2018 at 3:07 am

The gas will mostly be coming from the offshore Leviathan natural gas field, being developed off the coast of Haifa

Jordan has allocated 1.5 million dinars (around $2.1 million) in the 2018 national budget for a gas pipeline linking the Hashemite Kingdom with Israel. According to Al-Ghad newspaper on Sunday, the cost of the joint Jordanian-Israeli project is expected to rise to 3 million dinars ($4.2 million) in 2019, and to 6 million dinars ($8.5 million) by 2020. The pipeline will pass over the Sheikh Hussein border crossing, 90 km from Amman.

In September 2016, Jordan’s government-owned National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) and Noble Energy signed an agreement to import 40 per cent of the Kingdom’s electricity-generating needs from Israel. Noble Energy owns 39 per cent of the Leviathan natural gas field in Israeli territorial waters.

Leviathan Partners in Talks to Pipe Israeli Gas to Egypt Via Jordan - BLOOMBERG

August 10, 2017, 7:41 AM GMT+3
Yaacov Benmeleh, David Wainer, and Mohammad Tayseer

• Jordanian route would be more costly than going through Sinai
• Alternative path could circumvent Israel-Egypt dispute on fine

Egypt could be on its way to becoming a major market for Israeli gas. Companies developing Israel's biggest natural gas reservoir are said to be in talks to get around a dispute between the two governments by piping the gas through Jordan. Bloomberg's Yaacov Benmeleh reports on 'Bloomberg Markets: Middle East.' (VIDEO HERE)

Companies developing Israel’s largest natural gas reservoir are negotiating an alternative delivery route to key target market Egypt to skirt financial disputes that have held up an export deal, according to people in Egypt and Israel familiar with the matter.

Israel’s Delek Group Ltd. and Houston-based Noble Energy Inc., the major stakeholders in the Leviathan gas field, are in talks to sell about 3 billion cubic meters a year to Egypt’s Dolphinus Holdings Ltd., according to Dolphinus’s co-founder, Alaa Arafa.

Egypt pledges to supply gas to Jordan - GLOBES

6 Apr, 2017 12:59
Nati Yefet

Egypt's promises will pile pressure on the Jordanians not to sign a binding gas agreement with the Leviathan partners.

Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El-Molla this week repeated his prediction that Egypt would stop importing natural gas in 2018, and would instead supply all of its own needs. Jordanian news agency Petra reported that that at the international energy conference that took place in Oman on Sunday and Monday, El-Molla repeated his promise that Egypt would export gas to Jordan when its own supply is assured, i.e. in 2018 or 2019.

Gov't signs 7 energy deals - PETRA JORDAN NEWS AGENCY

Amman, April 2 2017 (Petra) -- The government on Sunday signed 7 agreements and Memoranda of Understanding on the sidelines of the third Jordan International Energy Summit.

The deals included a memo to import and export natural gas and liquefied gas, which was inked by Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ibrahim Seif, and his Egyptian counterpart, Tariq Al-Mulla.

Another deal with the Jordanian-Egyptian Fajr for Natural Gas Transmission and Supply company was signed to frame ties between the two sides in the field of natural gas sale. It was sealed by Director General of the National Electric Power Company (NEPCO), Abdel Fattah Daradkeh, and Chairman of the Jordanian-Egyptian Fajr Company, Fouad Rashad.
Further, General Manager of the Manaseer company for iron and steel, Mohamamd Kharabsheh, signed an agreement with Fajr company chairman, Fouad Rashad, to set up a point to supply gas.

Jordanians really don't want Israel’s gas - AL MONITOR

March 29, 2017

Mohammad Ersan; translated by Pascale el-Khoury

AMMAN, Jordan — Voices opposed to a gas sales and purchase agreement (GSPA) signed in September between Jordan’s National Electric Power Company and the operator of an Israeli gas field got louder March 20 when the Jordanian parliament obtained a copy of the agreement, whose details had been kept secret. Those against the contract are calling on the parliament to reject it. 

Houston-based Noble Energy holds the concession for developing Israel’s largest offshore gas deposit, the Leviathan natural gas field, 50 miles off the coast of Haifa in the Mediterranean. The agreement, expected to enter into force in 2019, has sparked demonstrations because many Jordanians view it as tantamount to normalization with Israel. According to the GSPA, Jordan will import 300 million cubic feet of gas per day from the Leviathan field for 15 years at a cost of $10 billion. Noble has a nearly 40% working interest in the field, while Israeli companies hold the rest.

Leviathan off the starting blocks - IN CYPRUS / CYPRUS WEEKLY

March 5, 2017
Charles Ellinas

Phase 1A of the Leviathan gasfield is finally off the starting blocks. Noble Energy and its partners reached FID on 23 February for Phase 1A, which involves the production of 12bcm/yr starting end of 2019. This can only be seen as positive news for the Leviathan partners and the Israeli gas market.

Leviathan was discovered in 2010 and it is estimated to hold 622bcm of recoverable gross natural gas resources. It is owned by Noble Energy with 39.66%, Delek Drilling with 22.67%, Avner with 22.67% and Ratio with 15%.

In the following, I analyse the FID decision, describe the deal and its potential impact on Energean and discuss the implications on East Med gas.

Leviathan partners ratify $3.75-billion gas-development plan - WORLD OIL

FEB/23/2017Yaacov Benmeleh

TEL AVIV (Bloomberg) -- The companies that own the rights to Leviathan, Israel’s largest natural gas reservoir, approved a plan to allocate $3.75 billion to develop the offshore site. Israel’s main gas equity index rose the most in almost five months.

The partners, led by Delek Group Ltd. and Houston-based Noble Energy, have agreed on a final investment decision, which lays out how the companies intend to spend the funds to develop Leviathan over the next three years, according to a Tel Aviv Stock Exchange filing Thursday.

The decision allows the partners to “launch the largest energy project in the history of Israel, that will also serve as one of the region’s energy anchors,” Yossi Abu, chief executive officer of Delek Drilling, said in an e-mailed statement. Delek Drilling holds a 22.7% stake in Leviathan and is a unit of Delek Group. “We will continue our activity to develop and expand our oil and gas assets in Israel and Cyprus,” Abu said.

Leviathan partners raise $1.75b from international lenders - JERUSALEM POST

February 21, 2017 17:30 

Sharon Udasin

The partners signed the financing agreement with a consortium of about 20 international and Israeli lenders, led by J.P. Morgan Limited and HSBC Pank Plc.

In a key step toward furnishing Israel and its neighbors with a robust natural-gas supply, the Leviathan reservoir partners have secured $1.75 billion in loans for the basin’s development.

The partners signed the financing agreement with a consortium of about 20 international and Israeli lenders, led by J.P. Morgan Limited and HSBC Bank PLC, according to a report submitted to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning. The funds are expected to support the A1 development stage of the Leviathan project.

Revealed: Israel Pledged to Place Jordan’s Natural Gas Needs Before Its Own - HAARETZ

Feb 15, 2017 5:27 AMAvi Bar-Eli 

Details of a letter to Amman, signed by Netanyahu and Energy Minister Steinitz, was obtained by Haaretz after the government refused to confirm it even exists.

Israel has committed to Jordan that it will give Jordanian natural gas needs preference over Israel’s in times of shortages, according to a letter signed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz.

Details of the letter, obtained by Haaretz columnist Nehemia Shtrasler, were published Tuesday in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition after government ministries refused to confirm that the letter existed at all.

The letter commits to Amman that the quantity of gas exported from the Leviathan offshore reserve will not drop under the contractually agreed volume for the duration of the 15-year contract.