Page 6 - MEOG Week 09

MEOG PIPeLInes & transPort MEOG
Israeli gas exports to Jordan in the dock
IsraeL/Jordan
ISrAEL’S gas exports to Jordan, which started in January hit rough waters in January when Jor- dan’s parliament voted in favour of legislation to ban the said gas imports.
Importing Israeli gas is especially sensitive as the majority of Jordanians are descendants of Palestinians who moved to the country after the creation of Israel in 1948.
This places the cash-strapped Jordanian government in a difficult position as it stands to achieve annual savings of at least $500 million from the deal which would also help it to diver- sify its energy supply sources.
Jordan, which imports almost all its energy needs, and any cancellation of the deal would entail legal action on the part of the Israeli off- shore suppliers.
Cancelling it will therefore endanger both the security of energy supplies for Jordan and expose it to unnecessary and costly arbitration and pun- ishing compensation.
Israeli officials say they do not expect any changes to the agreement between state-owned Jordanian National Electric Power Company and US independent Noble Energy, which recently began pumping the first supplies to the state player under a three-month experimental process. The deal is worth $10 billion.
For years Jordan had relied on Egyptian gas supplies but its Arab neighbour has faced gas shortages of its own and is also importing sup- plies from Israel.
Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab coun- tries to have peace treaties with Israel.™
Iraqi-Jordanian pipeline plans remain in place
Iraq/Jordan
OIL supplies to Jordan from Iraq reached the planning stage; the Iraqi Minister of Oil, Thamir Ghadhban, announced on January 4, 2020 the completion of the pre-qualifying process for countries interested in participating in the Ira- qi-Jordanian oil pipeline project bid, according to the Jordan Times.
The ministry noted that May 2020 will be the final date to receive offers, and winners will be announced by the end of the year. The min- istry clarified that the pipeline inside Iraq will be installed according to the engineering, pro- curement, construction, and financing contract (EPCF) model, while in Jordan it will be exe- cuted under the build–own–operate–transfer (BOOT) system.
The Jordanian government has also approved a deal with the Iraqi federal government to build two oil and gas pipelines connecting the neigh- bouring countries, Jordanian state-run news agency Petra reported.
The project is divided into two phases, the first phase includes installing a 700-kilome- ter-long pipeline with a capacity of 2.250 million barrels within the Iraqi territories, rumaila-ha- ditha. While the second phase includes install- ing a 900-kilometre pipeline in Jordan between
haditha and Aqaba with a capacity of one mil- lion barrels.
The pipeline would stretch from the province of Basra to Aqaba in Jordan, the government said, adding that the energy ministries would soon sign an agreement.
The deal is believed to be a strong strategic investment for both states and expected to fulfil Jordan’s oil and gas needs.
The Jordanian cabinet also mentioned the project would help the Iraqi government increase and broaden its oil exports abroad. According to the Kingdom’s Ministry of Energy, the 1,680 km double pipelines would export one million oil barrels per day from Basra to the Jor- danian Aqaba Port on the Arabia Gulf as well as 258 million cubic feet of gas.
Jordan needs almost 150,000 oil barrels from Iraq to fulfil its internal needs. The rest would be sent abroad, generating roughly three billion US dollars in revenue every year for the government in Amman, the Energy Ministry said.
Many of these developments in Jordan (and Egypt in the previous story) have arisen over the past twelve months; it is likely that a year ahead, the various scenarios will have changed of moved on.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 09 04•March•2020