Siding with controversial company, government scraps policy restricting Eilat oil imports
Broad coalition vows to continue fight to protect environment and Eilat corals from oil spills, notes exposure of oil infrastructure to enemy attack during ongoing war
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
The government on Monday overturned a more than three-year-old Environmental Protection Ministry policy of restricting oil imports at the port of Eilat on the Red Sea, which was meant to reduce the risk of oil leaks that could decimate the resort city’s world-renowned coral reefs.
The shock move came after years of lobbying by the state-owned Europe Asia Pipeline Company against a decision by former environmental protection minister Tamar Zandberg in 2021.
Infuriated by what she and ministry officials saw as the company’s inadequate environmental risk surveys, Zandberg limited oil imports to two million tons annually, dubbing the move a “zero additional risk” policy.
The decision, which the ministry was authorized to make as the regulator in charge of permits for toxic material use, disrupted an EAPC deal signed in 2020 with Red-Med, a consortium of Israeli and UAE businesspeople. That deal would have seen Gulf oil brought to the EAPC’s Eilat terminal on the Red Sea and channeled overground via EAPC pipelines to Ashkelon on the Mediterranean. From there, the oil would be reloaded onto tankers bound for Europe.
Since Zandberg’s decision, the EAPC has constantly tried to get the cap removed.
It remained unclear what further steps would be needed before the EAPC can increase its oil imports.
Since the start of war against Hamas, which has seen Houthi rebels in Yemen firing missiles at Eilat, the EAPC’s port in the city has barely functioned.
After several meetings of an inter-ministerial committee in August, it was agreed that the EAPC would submit a new Environmental Risk Survey within six months for Environmental Protection Ministry officials to examine.
Therefore, it was a surprise when a draft government decision to remove the cap was circulated just 14 hours before it was due for debate.
On Monday, seven southern local authority heads wrote to the prime minister, urging him to focus on rebuilding the south after Hamas’s deadly invasion on October 7, 2023, and to remove the issue from the government’s agenda once and for all.
At an emergency meeting called by the Environmental Protection Ministry on Sunday, those opposing any change to the policy included Giora Eiland, a former IDF operations chief and former head of the National Security Council, who now runs a consulting company that deals with the security implications of large infrastructure projects.
In an opinion commissioned by the Zalul marine protection organization, Eiland wrote that the Red-Med deal could lead to a 10-fold increase in the amount of crude (from two million to 20 million tons) and the number of tankers (from six to 60) coming into Eilat annually, increasing the likelihood of a malfunction or explosion that would lead to a marine oil spill.
He said that oil tankers off Israel’s coasts were particularly attractive targets for enemies who were equipping themselves with more precise missiles and drones, while the additional storage tanks needed would create “a stationary weak point with harmful consequences that ….stand in contrast to the trend towards the elimination of huge stockpiles of hazardous materials in Israel.”
Eilat would be at even greater risk if Iran succeeded in its plan to establish a terrorist infrastructure against Israel in Jordan, whose border runs close to the city, he continued.
He went on to say that the EAPC-UAE deal was not connected to the needs of the Israeli economy or its energy infrastructure, that the expected government revenues of up to $23 million per year were not worth the risk, and that contrary to the inter-ministerial report’s claim, the Red-Med deal had nothing to do with diplomatic relations with the UAE.
He further warned that diverting tanker trade from the Suez Canal could seriously strain relations with Egypt when Israel needed it for security arrangements along the Gaza-Egypt border to prevent the rearming of terror groups.
A broad coalition of environment, public health, civil society, state, and local government groups had consistently opposed attempts by the Prime Minister’s Office and its CEO Yossi Shelly to remove the Environmental Protection Ministry’s zero additional risk policy and side with the EAPC.
Shelley will serve as the next Israeli ambassador to the UAE.
After the government decision, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman said that the ministry would “continue to exercise its powers to ensure the protection of the Gulf of Eilat” and examine each request professionally, and would continue to supervise and enforce policy in coordination with all government agencies.
Speaking on behalf of the environmental groups, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel said on Monday that the fight would continue.
“The Israeli government continues its policy of neglect and its mad dash toward the next debacle, endangering Eilat, the Negev, the Arava, Ashkelon, and all of Israel’s coastal cities,” it added.
The Europe Asia Pipeline Company has a shoddy environmental record. Among various oil leaks, it was responsible a decade ago for the largest environmental disaster in Israel’s history when one of its pipelines ruptured, sending some 1.3 million gallons of crude oil into the Evrona Nature Reserve in southern Israel. The reserve has not yet recovered.
On Monday, the EAPC said in a statement: “An inter-ministerial professional committee… has unequivocally determined that the EAPC port in Eilat should be allowed to operate fully, based on the professional opinions submitted by the ministries of Energy, Defense, Finance, Foreign Affairs, the National Security Council, and the Companies Authority. Allowing the decision of former Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg, which was made without authority or a professional basis, will lead to the closure of the strategic EAPC port in Eilat and harm the energy security of the State of Israel.”
