Egypt starts controversial gas exports to Israel

Egypt has started exporting gas to Israel in accordance with a 2005 deal, an Israeli source told AFP on Monday, with the move set to irk the country's powerful Islamist opposition. "Egyptian gas has been flowing to Israel since last week but it has not yet been integrated into the Israeli network for procedural reasons," the source said, adding that the pipeline would be fully integrated "in a few days."

The new underwater pipeline runs 100 kilometres (63 miles) from the Egyptian Mediterranean city of El-Arish to the Israeli port of Ashkelon, supplying gas pumped from a gasfield in the north of the Sinai peninsula. The Egyptian side has remained virtually silent on its progress since a memorandum of understanding was signed in 2005.

The MOA provided for the export by an Egyptian-Israeli consortium, East Mediterranean Gas (EMG), of 1.7 billion cubic metres (60 billion cubic feet) of gas a year over 15 years for a total of 2.5 billion dollars.

AFP