Page 7 - MEOG Week 03
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MEOG PIPeLInes & transPort MEOG
Jordanian parliament demands ban on gas imports from Israel
east meD
AS a sequel to last week’s news of the commence- ment of oil being shipped from Israel to Jordan, Jordan’s parliament voted on Sunday, January 19 in favour of repealing an agreement to import gas from Israel after popular protests against the $10bn deal that came into effect earlier this month.
“The majority has voted to send an urgent motion to the government” requesting a new law to ban Israeli gas imports to Jordan, Parlia- ment Speaker Atef Tarawneh said during the live session, which was also broadcast on Facebook.
The vote comes after hundreds of Jordanians protested on Friday, for the second week in a row, calling for an end to the gas deal with Israel, who they consider an enemy. Jordanian protest- ers were reported as saying that they refused to light their country’s streets with gas “stolen from occupied Palestine”.
On January 1, according to the terms of the deal between Jordan’s state-run National Elec- tricity Co. (NEPCO), Texas-based Noble Energy and other partners, gas from Israel’s offshore Leviathan field first started to be pumped into Jordan for an experimental three-month period.
According to the agreement, Jordan will be supplied with gas from the field for 15 years.
Sunday’s motion has been sent to the gov- ernment for its approval, and must be sent back to Parliament for ratification. It was unclear whether the government would back the motion.
The government has said the deal will secure stable energy prices for the energy-dependent country for the next decade and could help reduce its chronic budget deficit, potentially saving Jordan at least $500mn annually.
For years Jordan relied on Egyptian gas sup- plies but a spate of attacks by militants on the export pipeline that runs through the restive Sinai Peninsula disrupted that flow.
Jordan imports nearly 98% of its energy needs, and has long relied on gas, heavy fuel oil and diesel to run its power plants. The cash- strapped desert kingdom with few natural resources has defended the deal, saying it would cut $600mn a year from the state’s energy bill.
Last month, 58 MPs out of 130 requested an “urgent” draft law be formulated that scrapped the gas deal, but an MP was quoted as saying that this proposal was deliberately buried.
Week 03 22•January•2020 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P7
