Dec 13, 2019

CAIRO — Egypt will soon start working off a debt to Israel by importing Israeli natural gas.

Egypt had faced a $1.76 billion settlement awarded to state-owned Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) in 2015 because Egyptian companies for years had been unable to fulfill a long-term contract to supply IEC with natural gas at a fixed rate. To reduce that settlement to $500 million, Egypt is reversing the flow, so to speak, and will buy gas from Israel.

Texas-based Noble Energy, which operates Israel’s largest offshore natural gas field, Leviathan, will start supplying the local Israeli market by the end of December. "In the weeks right after that, we will export to Egypt and Jordan," Binyamin Zomer, Noble Energy’s vice president for regional affairs, said Dec. 2 at Israel's annual Energy and Business Convention in Ramat Gan.

On Nov. 3, EMED — a partnership between Noble Energy, Israel’s Delek Drilling and Egyptian East Gas Co. — closed its deal to acquire a 39% stake in East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG), owner of the EMG Pipeline, for $185 million. The 90-kilometer (56-mile) subsea line will transport Israel's gas to Egypt.

Noble Energy and Delek Drilling are substantial partners in the operation of Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar offshore fields in the Mediterranean. The two companies had agreed to sell $15 billion worth of gas to a customer in Egypt — Dolphinus Holdings — but in October, the deal was amended to increase supply by 34% to about 85 billion cubic meters (3 trillion cubic feet), or about $20 billion.