Energy Ministry chief says Haifa refineries must close by decade’s end

Haifa’s Bazan oil refineries must close by the end of the decade as planned, the Energy Ministry’s Director General Yossi Dayan tells a conference in the southern city of Eilat.

Dayan says the multifront war sparked by the Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, underlined the importance of energy diversity — particularly the need to strengthen renewable energy — and of not relying on the import of refined oil products known as distillates.

The government decided in 2022 to close the Haifa refinery by the end of this decade, after years of pressure from city residents and environmental activists.

Dayan says there are two options, both involving the closure of Bazan: relying on Israel’s smaller, second refinery in the southern city of Ashdod, or building a new facility in southern Israel with the latest technology to minimize environmental damage.

Plans are currently underway to build massive storage facilities for imported distillates.

“I don’t think we should condition the closure of Bazan on completing its relocation to the south,” Dayan says. “We must act on two parallel paths: building distillate storage capabilities for national resilience, and promoting the relocation alternative.”