Page 11 - DMEA Week 30 2021
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DMEA PIPELINES DMEA
Israel freezes RED MED pipe deal
MIDDLE EAST ISRAEL’S Ministry of Environmental Protection crude oil and oil-related products from the Red
this week announced that it was delaying the Sea to the Mediterranean without traversing
development of an oil transmission project that either the Suez Canal the or Strait of Hormuz,
will pipe Emirati oil from the Red Sea directly to providing that the crude was exported from the
the Mediterranean. eastern emirate of Fujairah.
The pipeline’s backers had submitted an envi- RED MED is jointly owned by Petromal, part
ronmental risk assessment in response to a chal- of Abu Dhabi-based National Holding, Israeli
lenge by parties concerned that the project would company AF Entrepreneurship, and interna-
heighten the risk of an oil spill. tional infrastructure and energy company Lub-
Despite claiming the risk from increased ber Line.
crude flows was minute, the Europe Asia Pipe- Given the accession to the job of environ-
line Co. (EAPC) – formerly Eilat Ashkelon Pipe- mental protection minister of the Meretz Party’s
line Co. – was informed by the ministry that the Tamar Zandberg, a vocal critic of the proposed
report “did not meet the [ministry’s] conditions”, pipeline, the decision to freeze the deal is
adding that it was “delaying the evaluation of unsurprising.
your preparations to increase activity in the Eilat Meanwhile, the office of newly appointed
port, until the government has a discussion and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that it had
reaches a decision” on the development. “asked the court for an extension of time, in order
The new old pipeline, first built in the 1960s to respond to the petition filed by the environ-
to transport Iranian oil to Israel, is being repur- mental organisations”. Eilat had previously been
posed by its new owner the EAPC to help RED considered as the location of a potential floating
MED Land Bridge Co., a joint venture between LNG (FLNG) facility but was discounted on
Israel and the UAE, to transport UAE-origin environmental grounds.
Week 30 29•July•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P11