Cairo – Mubasher: Egypt is reconsidering importing gas from Israel, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Israel’s energy minister Yuval Steinitz and Egypt’s petroleum minister Tarek El-Molla held a phone conversation after the latter stated that Egypt will achieve natural gas self-sufficiency by the end of 2018, the sources added.
Shares of Israeli gas companies have fallen down on speculation Egypt would halt talks on buying gas from Israel, the sources highlighted.
The main obstacle to any Egyptian-Israeli gas deal is the $2 billion fine approved by a Swiss court in favour of Israel’s electricity provider, El-Molla told Bloomberg in an interview.
Egypt's natural gas output rose to about 4.45 billion cubic feet per day in 2016, according to the Petroleum Ministry data.
Gas output is forecast to hike to 6.2 billion cubic feet per day by the end of fiscal year 2017/2018.
