Israel reduced natural gas supplies exported to Egypt by about 23%, reaching 850 million cubic feet per day, due to partial maintenance work in the “Tamar” and “Leviathan” fields located in the Mediterranean Sea, which will last less than a week, according to two government officials who spoke to Al-Sharq on condition that their names not be published.
The Israeli Ministry of Energy confirmed, Carrying out ongoing maintenance work in the two fields, explaining that these works are “a routine part of the operation of any complex engineering system. Based on the operator’s request, maintenance work on the platform was approved for a period of less than a week.”
NewMed Energy, a partner in the Israeli Leviathan field, announced last August the signing of a fundamental amendment to the agreement to export natural gas to Egypt, which includes a huge increase in the agreed upon quantities, with an extension of the supply period until 2040, in a step considered the largest of its kind in the history of energy exports between Egypt and Israel.
The amendment signed with the Egyptian “Ocean Energy” company included adding about 4.6 trillion cubic feet (equivalent to 130 billion cubic meters) of natural gas to the original agreement, distributed in two stages. The first: includes the export of about 706 billion cubic feet immediately after the amendment enters into force. The second: stipulates the export of up to 3.9 trillion cubic feet, but is conditional on meeting investment requirements and expanding the gas transportation infrastructure.
The amended agreement also extends the export period until 2040, or until the agreed upon additional quantity is exhausted, whichever comes first.
A gap between gas production and consumption in Egypt
One of the government officials said in an interview with Al-Sharq, “Israel began maintenance work in the Tamar and Leviathan fields last Saturday.
The maintenance work comes at a time when Egypt’s current average production of natural gas is about 4 billion cubic feet per day, compared to a local demand of about 6.2 billion cubic feet per day, which rises to 7.2 billion cubic feet during the summer months, driven by increased consumption of power plants, forcing Cairo to import shipments of liquefied gas to fill the gap between production and consumption.
In conjunction with the increase in liquefied gas imports, Egypt aims to raise its domestic production to about 6.6 billion cubic feet per day by 2030, which represents an increase of approximately 65% from the current production level, in addition to drilling 14 exploratory wells in the Mediterranean Sea during 2026 to assess reserves estimated at about 12 trillion cubic feet.
