Israeli gas group in talks on export pipelines to Turkey, Jordan, Egypt

Reuters

A group of energy companies that discovered large amounts of natural gas off Israel’s Mediterranean coast said they were in talks to export the gas to Europe via a pipeline to Turkey.

They are also studying options to export gas to Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, Avner Oil & Gas said yesterday.

“The partners are negotiating with various officials,” Avner, one of the partners in the project, said.

A spokesman for Delek Group, the parent company for Avner and for Delek Drilling, said the group - led by Noble Energy - was already in advanced talks with companies in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority about buying Israeli gas and building pipelines.

The talks show that the gas project is moving ahead, with prospects of eventually boosting Israel’s export revenue and economic growth. They also indicate reduced tensions between Israel and Turkey. A pipeline could improve relations between the two countries, which have been poor since 2010.

Recoverable gas in the Levant Basin, which lies largely in Israeli and Cypriot waters in the eastern Mediterranean, hold some 3.5tn cu m of gas, the US Geological Survey has estimated.

Israel wants to carry Israeli gas to Turkey

Sevil Küçükkoşum         Hurriyet Daily News

Israel sees ‘Med-Streams’ in service of regional diplomacy

Building a pipeline that will carry Israeli gas to Turkey would enhance political normalization between two countries, Israeli envoy says, contrary to Turkish efforts to separate two processes

Transferring Israeli gas through Turkey to the international market is profitable for both Turkey and Israel and cooperation in the energy field could pave the way for resolving regional problems, a senior diplomat from the Jewish state said, as he apparently referred to probable normalization of bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel with the help of such cooperation at a bilateral level.

“We should start thinking at least about a set of Med-Streams, a set of pipelines and LNG that will enable us to exploit not only oil and gas, but also to create another political environment,” Ambassador Michael Lotem, special envoy for energy of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said yesterday, referring to prospects of building of a pipeline from Israel to Turkey.

“Can we use energy; can we use gas, beyond the commercial value of it, in the service of politics, in the service of diplomacy?” Lotem asked in a speech delivered at the second and last day of the 12th Turkish International Oil & Gas Conference (TUROGE).

Turkey-Israel: the new Great Game

Daniel Dombey          Financial Times - BeyondBrics

There is a new Great Game afoot and it is taking place beneath the sea floor of the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey and Israel’s tentative reconciliation is a process so fraught that US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared in Istanbul at the weekend to chivvy the two sides towards restoring full diplomatic ties. But if the steps he set out can be taken — agreeing compensation for nine Turks killed by Israeli forces in 2010, avoiding inflammatory talk, exchange of ambassadors — then a whole series of changes could be unleashed from Damascus to Brussels.


In particular, there is the question of a pipeline that could ferry newly discovered Israeli natural gas to energy-hungry Turkey — a move that would knit the two US allies closer together, despite enduring suspicions.

“It is possible that cooperation in energy between Turkey and Israel could follow an anticipated rapprochement,” said Taner Yilidz, Turkey’s energy minister, on Monday.

Turkish officials caution that bilateral talks on such cooperation can only really get going after ambassadors are exchanged — but add that business contacts on the topic are already burgeoning.

Turkey’s Big Week Means New Clout In An Emerging Middle East

Karl VICK   TIME

A sandstorm was kicking up at Ben Gurion International midday last Friday, winds bad enough to cancel the departure ceremony for President Obama’s winning trip to Israel. But in a sheet metal trailer on the tarmac, Obama was calming another storm, three years along and finally running out of bluster. In the box with him was his host, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Nentayahu.  In Netanyahu’s hand was a cell phone. And on the other end of the line was the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As arranged in advance by Obama and diplomats from all three countries, Bibi read out an official apology for the nine lives lost on the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara in May 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the aid ship en route to breaking Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip.  Netanyahu’s words, along with a promise to compensate survivors and continue to ease strictures on the Palestinian enclave, ended a diplomatic cleavage seated in sheer cussedness, and restored what one Israeli diplomat calls “the triangle” – made up of the two most stable and prosperous democracies in the Middle East, and the superpower that needs them on the same side.

Israel and Turkey eye ties on Syria

Daniel Dombey & John Reed         The Financial Times
 
The prospect of a reconciliation between Turkey and Israel has paved the way for closer co-operation on Syria and removed a big obstacle to collaboration over the development of strategic energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean, officials on both sides say.

Ties between the two former allies suddenly improved on Friday when Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, issued a US-brokered apology to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Turkish opposite number, over a deadly flotilla attack in 2010.
 
Mr Netanyahu’s apology capped a week in which Turkey appeared to bolster its strategic position in an unstable Middle East. After talks with Mr Erdogan’s government, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers party, or PKK, declared a ceasefire in a long and bloody conflict that had become a geopolitical vulnerability for Ankara.

The rapprochement could also affect crisis-hit Cyprus, which has recently deepened its own ties with Israel, if improved Turkish-Israeli ties lead to greater energy co-operation that sidelines Nicosia.

“Fantastic week for Erdogan,” tweeted Javier Solana, the former EU policy chief, citing the Kurdish ceasefire and progress towards normal relations with Israel.

Turkey-Israel gas pipeline deal ?

Turkish companies and western multinationals operating there are expressing an interest in purchasing gas from Israel’s Leviathan gas field, media outlets in both countries are reporting.

“The Turks are interested in buying Israeli gas, they refuse to buy Cypriot gas, but any pipeline from Israel to Turkey would run through Cyprus's exclusive economic zone,” Israel’s Haaretz reported.

An Israeli-Turkish undersea pipeline would be 600km long and cost an estimated $2 billion, the paper said.

Other reports said that, in addition to the Leviathan partners - Noble, the Delek Group and Ratio Oil Exploration - the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources have been informed about the contacts.

Turkish conglomerate Zorlu Group is said to be lobbying Israel to approve energy exports to Turkey.

Zorlu's reported plan is to lay an undersea pipeline from the Leviathan field 130km off Haifa to Turkey's south coast.

The conglomerate has interests in textiles, communications, energy and real estate, and is considered one of Turkey's biggest consumers of natural gas. In Israel, it owns a 25 per cent stake in Dorad Energy, which is developing a private power plant in Ashkelon.

The Land of Gas and Honey

Robin M MILLS*     Foreign Policy

Israel's giant new natural gas find will transform the Middle East -- and add more fuel to an already combustible region.

Mother Nature's distribution of oil and gas resources around the world suggests she has a mischievous sense of humor. In the Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and Caspian Sea, large fields lie in disputed zones between unfriendly neighbors.

Now we must add another hot spot to that list. New, giant, natural gas finds promise to transform the energy security and economy of Israel and, perhaps, its neighbors. But these treasures could hardly have been better placed to stir up trouble, complicating three of the world's most intractable conflicts: between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and Lebanon, and Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The recent sharp deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations makes disputes over gas even more fraught with danger.

Golda Meir, the feisty, cantankerous, and quotable fourth Israeli prime minister, used to complain that Moses led the Israelites through the desert for 40 years to bring them to the only place in the Middle East without oil. In 2000, after Britain's BG had discovered significant volumes of gas at Gaza Marine, she was proved at least half-wrong when U.S. exploration company Noble Energy found a similar-sized field, Mari-B, in Israeli waters.

Erdogan in Cairo: Israel is undermining its own legitimacy

 

Oren KESSLER     The Jerusalem Post 

Receiving hero’s welcome, Turkish PM tells Arab League representatives that int'l recognition of Palestinian state “not an option but an obligation.”

Israel’s actions are undermining its own legitimacy, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Arab League representatives in Cairo on Tuesday, adding that international recognition of a Palestinian state is “not an option but an obligation.”

“While Israel is trying to secure its legitimacy in our region on one hand, it is taking irresponsible steps that unsettle its legitimacy on the other,” Erdogan told Arab foreign ministers in the Egyptian capital, his first stop on a Middle East tour intended to bolster Turkey’s role as a rising regional power player.  

The Turkish premier received a hero’s welcome in Cairo, with hundreds of raucous Egyptians chanting his name outside the Arab League headquarters.

“Erdogan has turned into an Arab hero,” said a Syrian protester standing outside the Arab League building.

Premier of Turkey Takes Role in Region

David D. KIRKPATRICK     The New York Times

CAIRO — Seeking to capitalize on Turkey’s growing stature and influence across the Arab world at a time of regional upheaval, its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appeared on Egyptian television late Monday once again calling Israel “the West’s spoiled child.”

Mr. Erdogan’s appearance kicked off a so-called Arab Spring tour, with plans to also visit Libya and Tunisia in addition to Cairo. He is seeking to enhance his regional celebrity and bolster Turkey’s standing as a potential role model for Arab states fitfully inching toward democracy. His visit comes at a moment when the revolutions of the Arab Spring have thrown into question much of the established order that has prevailed in the region for the last 30 years, including the terms of Israel’s uneasy peace with its neighbors, in particular, Egypt.

Once a close ally of Israel, Turkey accelerated its growing stature across the Arab world — and further upended the regional order — when it downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel and expelled its ambassador early this month after Israel refused to issue an apology for a deadly commando raid last year aboard an aid ship trying to break the embargo of the Gaza Strip. But even before the recent flare-up with Israel, Mr. Erdogan was already lionized across the region for his commitment to Islamist politics, pluralistic constitutional democracy and energetic economic development. In Egypt, aspiring Islamist politicians often try to sell themselves as “the Egyptian Erdogan.”

Turkish-Egyptian alliance: Israel faces regional isolation

Editorial   Guardian

Netanyahu can either prepare for another war or accept that Israel can no longer impose its will on its neighbours.

Monday's visit to Egypt by Turkey's prime minister, Reccep Tayyip Erdogan, will be watched like no other. It comes just three days after thousands of Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Eighty-six Israelis inside fled, and six security guards trapped inside a strong room had to be freed by Egyptian commandos, but only after intervention from the White House. What those diplomats felt was the wrath of an Egyptian people humiliated by the killing of five soldiers at the Israeli border three weeks ago. A sixth soldier died at the weekend. Mr Erdogan will bring with him the support of a regional power and Nato member whose citizens were also killed by Israeli soldiers on the Gaza flotilla last year, and who is now threatening to send warships to protect the next one. If post-revolutionary Egypt and an economically resurgent Turkey make common cause against their former common ally – and there is every indication that they will – Israel's isolation in the region will be profound.

Turkey set to sign military pact with Egypt after cutting trade ties with Israel

Zvi BAR'EL      HAARETZ

The alliance is not intended as 'revenge' against Israel; Erdogan's intention is to extend Turkey's influence to areas it has not reached in past decades. 

A military and economic alliance with Egypt is set to be signed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The deal should be clinched when Erdogan visits Cairo next Monday - the first such visit paid by a Turkish prime minister in 15 years.

The alliance is not intended as "revenge" against Israel; Erdogan's intention is to extend Turkey's influence to areas it has not reached in past decades.

Under former President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt rejected Turkish overtures; Mubarak viewed Erdogan as an interloper in regions that were under Egypt's, and Saudi Arabia's, influence. The new Egyptian government, however, seems eager to develop economic and strategic ties with Turkey.

After keeping mum on the subject of sanctions on Israel for three days, Erdogan has made his position clear: He believes that Israel-Turkey relations are not a personal matter between himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but rather a Turkish national interest.

Why the crisis between Turkey and Israel is hurting everyone

Joshua WALKER** & Emiliano ALESSANDRI*    GMFUS

WASHINGTON — The United Nations’ recent report investigating the deaths of nine Turks when Israel stopped a flotilla trying to break a Gaza blockade has brought an end to a suspenseful episode in Turkish-Israeli relations. But with closure (of a sort) comes an opening (of a sort). We might be nearing one of the greatest breaks in the region as both governments react to the report’s content.

Now is not the time for these longstanding allies to escalate yet another crisis in an already challenging, unstable, and dangerous region. As democracies with deep links to the transatlantic community, Turkey and Israel must recognize that they both have vital stakes in the stabilization of the Middle East through the establishment of more representative regimes in the region. Both have the same goal of helping other countries integrate into the broader international economy to boost much-needed growth and development while also improving humanitarian standards in the region to international standards. Instead, the latest developments distract everyone from these commonalties toward unhelpful divergences.