Baku, Azerbaijan, July 14
By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:
The Israeli gas quantities itself are not sufficient to influence the European market, Dr. Oded Eran a senior researcher at the Israeli Institute for Strategic Studies and former Israeli Ambassador to the EU believes.
“But the combined quantities from the region may become significant for Europe and the countries on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean,” Eran told Trend.
Earlier at the 22nd World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said that Turkey and Israel plans to sign an agreement on a gas pipeline construction until the yearend.
"We want to build a pipeline stretching from Israel to Turkey in order to able to export natural gas from Israel to Turkey," Steinitz said, adding that the Israeli gas could be delivered to Europe and to the Balkans through Turkey.
According to Eran, it is quite possible that initially gas will be used by Turkey as the sole consumer.
Meanwhile if the pipeline can be build with capacity to carry bigger quantities from other gas sources for example, Egypt, Gaza, Lebanon and etc., this may create the possibility of gas from the East Mediterranean flowing to Europe, he said.
Eran does not exclude that Israeli gas could further join the Southern Gas Corridor and be pumped by the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), however he noted that this will depend on the entry point of this gas on the Turkish side and its destination.
The analyst noted that the pipeline route has to be decided by geological, financial and political considerations.
“The most economic route is not necessarily politically feasible since the pipeline will have to cross the Economic Excusive Zones of Cyprus or Syria and Lebanon,” Eran said, adding that legally this is possible to build such a pipeline but it may run into political problems.
In Israel, two giant fields - Tamar and Leviathan were discovered in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Gas reserves of these fields amount to tens of trillion cubic feet.