The international arbitration case between Egypt and Israel over natural gas trading could be resolved in the upcoming months, Israel’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Sunday.
Steinitz told Reuters that a final understanding is already established, and what’s left is the approval of the Israeli electric authority and maybe also of someone on the Egyptian side.
In December 2015, the International Chamber of Commerce in Geneva issued a ruling requiring the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) and the General Petroleum Corporation to pay a compensation to the East Mediterranean Gas Company for $288m and $1.7bn to the Israel Electricity Company, after Egypt suspended gas exports to Israel in April 2012.
In 2018, two 10-year agreements worth $15bn to export Israeli natural gas to Egypt were signed. The agreements between Delek Drilling and Noble Energy—the operators of Israel’s largest natural gas fields Tamar and Leviathan—and the Egyptian company Dolphinus Holdings, will supply Egypt with 7bn cubic metres of gas annually.
A petroleum sector source told Daily News Egypt that that the settlement of the arbitration cases filed by the Israeli side against Egypt was done before the gas export agreement from Delek and Noble was sealed.
