Delek-Noble announces $500m deal to allow Israeli gas exports to Egypt

Noble Energy and its Israeli partner Delek, along with Egyptian East Gas Company, announces that it has bought 39 percent of a disused pipeline connecting the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon with the north Sinai, a deal that will enable the export of Israel’s natural gas to Egypt.

The consortium paid $518 million for the interest in the East Mediterranean Gas Company pipeline.

An aerial view of the Israeli ‘Tamar’ gas processing rig 24 kilometers off the Israeli southern coast of Ashkelon. Noble Energy and Delek are the main partners in the oil field, October 11, 2013. (Moshe Shai/FLASH90)

The mainly undersea pipeline will be used to transport natural gas from the Tamar and Leviathan reservoirs to Egypt from as early as 2019, allowing a 10-year $15 billion deal signed in February with Egypt’s Dolphinus to move forward, Delek says in a statement.

It will be the first time Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, imports gas from its neighbor.

— with AP