Officials hope natural gas supply to resume by Wednesday

Officials were hopeful that a fault in Israel’s sole natural gas pipeline could be fixed by midweek, but were nevertheless gearing up for a long-term shortage that could cripple the country’s electricity production.

“According to current expectations, the fault will be repaired later this week, but to be on the safe side, I have given instructions for us to be prepared for shortages over a longer period,” Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said late Saturday.

On Friday, it emerged that a failure had been caused by a crack in a pipe some 24 kilometers (15 miles) off the coast of Ashkelon that services the Tamar gas field. The actual Tamar field is about 90 kilometers west of Haifa.

Following the discovery of the large field, Israel switched much of its electricity production from coal to gas, which is cleaner and cheaper.

“We are speaking about completing the repairs by Wednesday in the evening,” the energy ministry’s director general, Shaul Meridor, told Israel Radio on Sunday morning, adding that “we are preparing ourselves for longer, just in case.”

Meridor said that Israel had tapped into a strategic reserve to ensure that there were no immediate power shortages.

Meridor said two other gas fields were expected to come online in 2019-2020, making Israel less dependent on Tamar.

The shortages were expected to have a significant impact on electricity production, with power plants required to use alternative sources of fuel, such as coal and diesel, for longer periods of time.

The use of alternative fuel sources would also likely lead to a hike in electricity costs for private consumers, according to the business daily Calcalist.

The Energy Ministry noted that there was no signs of pollution in the sea due to the crack in the pipe.