Cairo, May 05: The Egyptian finance minister has reportedly announced that Cairo is not obliged to sell natural gas to energy-hungry Israel despite a peace accord between the North African country and the Tel Aviv regime.
Samir Radwan said gas prices must be updated and adjusted to price levels of the global market regardless of whether the exports go to Israel, Jordan, Syria or Spain, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Anba reported on Sunday.
Egypt started exporting gas to Israel through the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) consortium for the first time in May 2008 under an agreement signed in 2005 for the supply of 1.7 billion cubic meters a year over 15 years.
The consortium, which supplies 45 percent of Israel’s gas requirements, has been accused of selling gas to Tel Aviv at below market prices.
The latest official remarks come as Egypt’s ousted President Hosni Mubarak is under investigation over “squandering public funds” by supplying ‘cheap’ gas to the US-sponsored Israeli regime.
The Egyptian public prosecutor has ordered Egypt’s former Energy Minister Sameh Fahmy as well as six other officials to be probed on charges related to the natural gas deal between East Mediterranean Gas and Israel.
The gas exports to Israel were cut off after the pipeline carrying the gas across the Sinai Peninsula was damaged in an explosion and the resulting blaze on February 5.
Egypt supplied nearly 40 percent of Israel’s gas consumption.
Tel Aviv is worried that a regime change in Cairo could jeopardize its 31-year-old peace treaty with Egypt. In February, a leading Egyptian opposition group pledged to push for a referendum to decide the fate of Egypt’s 1979 agreement with Israel.
Israeli media outlets have also expressed concerns over a possible revocation of the Egyptian accord with Israel.
If Egypt refuses to supply gas to the Tel Aviv regime, the Israeli market will have to function without natural gas for nearly a year until the Tamar drilling begins in 2014.
Israel plans to drill for gas in the Tamar gas field, discovered in the Mediterranean Sea in 2009. The gas field, however, is a source of dispute between Israel and Lebanon as Beirut says the field extends into its territory.
——–Agencies