Economy minister mulling further stall on natural gas deal

Economy Minister Aryeh Deri said on Wednesday he is leaning toward refraining from bypassing the Antitrust Commissioner on a controversial deal on Israel’s natural gas reserves — delaying parliamentary approval of the high-stakes agreement.

Deri told Knesset reporters that he would rather wait until the appointment of a new antitrust commissioner in several weeks’ time instead of using his ministerial privilege to push through the agreement without the trust-buster.

Article 52 of the Antitrust Law enables Deri as economy minister to bypass the commissioner and approve the deal between Israel and a US-Israeli energy consortium to develop Israel’s off-shore fields, which boosters say will bring hundreds of billions of shekels into state coffers.

Earlier this month the cabinet approved the disputed natural gas deal despite criticism that the arrangement favored the energy companies, paving the way for the Knesset to vote on the measure.

Previous commissioner David Gilo announced his resignation in May after saying aspects of the deal resembled a monopoly and called for opening Israel’s natural gas market to increased competition. His resignation comes into effect at the beginning of September.

Opposition Zionist Union MK Eitan Cabel, chair of the Knesset Economy Committee, on Wednesday criticized Deri for trying to avoid taking responsibility for approving the deal.

“We all very well remember that Deri voted in favor of the gas deal in the cabinet,” Cabel said and referred to Deri’s national election campaign in which he promised to be the voice of the “invisible” economically weaker classes of society. “It is about time that he decide to be who he claims he is — the Knesset’s representative of the transparent and translucent people.”

“All of parliamentary pyrotechnics that Deri and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu are planning for each other are designed to make a nice wrapping for a bad product and to enable Deri to come out of the whole story looking good,” Cabel said.

Noble and Delek have been producing gas from the Tamar field off the Israeli coast since 2013. They have also teamed up to develop the offshore Leviathan field, believed to be the largest in the Mediterranean, by 2019.

The negotiations have been controversial in Israel, with critics fearing regulations would overly favor the companies involved.

Deri and a number of other coalition lawmakers cried foul over a separate attempt by Netanyahu to push forward a version of the gas deal earlier in the year, causing the prime minister to abort the vote at the last minute.

However, Deri voted in favor of the recently tweaked deal during the cabinet meeting.

Under the agreed terms, the Delek Group, owned by Yitzhak Tshuva, will sell its holdings in the Tamar, Karish and Tanin gas fields within six years and Noble Energy will gradually reduce its holdings in Tamar to no more than 25 percent within that same time frame. During those six years, prices for natural gas will be regulated.

The sides also agreed that while the government will be bound to the agreement for 10 years, the Knesset will not be, and may vote on changes to it in the future.