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Israel conceals data on gas exports to Egypt and Jordan
IsraeL/egyPt
CITING commercial secrecy, data on Israel’s overseas sales from the Leviathan gas field are disguised under other categories of exports.
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) has stopped reporting data on exports of Israeli natural gas, saying that doing so would disclose commercial secrets.
The agency confirmed that it had changed its policy on reporting gas exports, “camou- flaging” them by moving the dollar amounts to other export categories. The CBS declined to say which categories, saying it sought to preserve the commercial secrecy of Leviathan’s partners, U.S. company Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Drill- ing and ratio.
Explaining its new policy, the bureau said: “Natural gas in Israel is a developing sector which contains information of enormous importance. The Statistics Ordinance mandates the confiden- tiality of information received from public bod- ies, in order to ensure that data that is published is not disclosed to identify the reporting entities.
“In recent weeks, the CBS has begun to thor- oughly examine the manner and content of pub- lishing data on the all-important issue of the gas sector,” it said.
Gas exports are not only important econom- ically; they have an important political dimen- sion. For Israel, they help cement relations with two Arab neighbours, Egypt and Jordan. In the case of Jordan, natural gas from Israel is a criti- cal source of energy. But importing Israeli gas is controversial, especially in Jordan. Last month, Jordan kingdom’s parliament approved a draft law to ban imports of Israeli gas to the country just days after they started.
In addition, because Israeli gas production comes from just two fields, Tamar and Levi- athan, export data effectively provides inside information about their operations.
Until now, the bureau issued figures on exports of natural gas from Tamar to Jordan, purchased by the Arab Potash and Jordan Bro- mine companies. But after gas began to flow from the much bigger Leviathan field earlier this year, both to domestic and export markets, the bureau ceased reporting the data.
Pipeline Flows
The discovery of the Zohr gas field offshore Egypt in 2015 was a game-changer for the North African country. Covering 3,765 square kilo- metres (1,454 sq mi) and operated by Italian energy company Eni it is the largest ever natural gas find in the Mediterranean Sea, and is esti- mated to have total gas in place of 850 billion cubic metres (30 trillion cubic feet), which has almost doubled Egypt’s gas reserves
In January 2020, Egypt started importing natural gas from Israel’s largest offshore gas field Leviathan.
The gas is intended for domestic consump- tion and for liquification for export to other mar- kets - a development that will be welcomed by Europe, which is trying to lessen its dependence on natural gas imported from russia. In particu- lar it is a landmark step toward Cairo’s ambitious plan to become a regional energy hub.
In a statement announcing the first transfer, the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral resources said the step “represents an important development that serves the economic interests for both countries”.
In response to rumours of Egypt importing large quantities of gas to fill the deficit in the local market , the media centre of the Egyptian cabinet explained that Egypt had succeeded in achiev- ing self-sufficiency in natural gas since 1 October 2018, and even became a production hub during the last quarter of the same year.
Week 09 04•March•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P7