Merhav considers buying gas exploration rights to drill in Israeli waters

A senior executive with the Israeli company Merhav, a partner in the EMG consortium that has won gas drilling rights in Egypt, told the Knesset that Merhav would consider buying the gas exploration rights to drill in Israeli waters if the current right-holders choose to leave the market. The EMG consortium holds the right to operate a gas supply line from Egypt to Israel and Turkey.
Merhav Vice President Nimrod Novik was responding to a recent decision to allow the Israel Electric Corporation to negotiate gas supply arrangements with non-Israeli suppliers. He dismissed the claim that buying the right to drill off Egypt would jeopardise the oil and gas exploration ventures in Israel.
Novik welcomed the competition that would result from allowing importers of gas to compete with the drilling of as-of-yet unknown quantities of natural gas in Israeli waters, claiming the Israeli consumer would ultimately benefit from the competition. Novik pointed out that Egypt could promise to supply gas to Israel within two years, whereas other suppliers could not guarantee their supply for upward of 3 to 4 years.

Meanwhile, the Director general of the National Infrastructure Ministry, Jacob Efraty, confirmed the government's decision would allow more competition in the gas industry. Efraty said that the government envisioned that, in the long term, a multitude of gas suppliers would compete in the Israeli economy.
On the matter of laying the infrastructure for the gas supply, Efraty said that the government was not inclined to award the right of laying the pipeline to the company that supplies the gas. Other gas companies had objected to the government's allowing the entry of foreign gas suppliers into the market.