Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett
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The Middle Eastern nation is reportedly considering setting up one or more new gas pipelines that could transit through Greece or Turkey to help boost the bloc’s supplies. It is also looking at a plan to send pipeline gas into Egypt to be liquified and shipped off to the EU. Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharrar said that the country has “the ability, and we will try to do as much as we can”.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said in a recent visit to Athens: “The war in Ukraine stands to change the structure of the European and Middle Eastern energy market.
“We are also examining additional economic cooperation, with an emphasis on the energy market.”
An Israel-Turkey pipeline has also been a plan for years in the making.
The idea involves a subsea pipeline from Turkey to Leviathan in Israel, the county’s largest offshore natural gas field.
The project would transit Israel’s gas to Turkey, and then to southern European nations eager to wean themselves off Russian gas.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has even said that gas cooperation is “one of the most important steps” Israel and Turkey can take “together for bilateral ties”.
The Leviathan field currently supplies Israel, Jordan and Egypt with gas.
The owners have claimed they plan to ramp up production from 12 to 21 billion cubic meters (BCM) a year, shipping off extra gas to Europe or the Far East.
This will likely not make Israel the sole replacement for Putin as Europe’s major gas supplier, given that the bloc imported 155 billion cubic meters of Russian gas last year.
This covered nearly 40 percent of its total consumption.
Part of the EU’s new energy strategy, REpowerEU, details plans to ramp up imports of liquified natural gas (LNG) from alternative producers like Israel.
This, the bloc claims, can help it sash oil and gas imports from Russia by two thirds by the end of the year, and permanently by 2030.
Israel will likely provide as one of several suppliers which might help to boost Europe’s energy security, alongside the US and other Middle Eastern nations like Qatar.
Last month the US struck a deal with the EU to send it another 15 billion cubic metres of LNG on top of last year’s 22 billion cubic metres, which will represent around 24 percent of the gas sent from Russia.
And Germany, which got 55 percent of its gas from Russia last year, struck a deal with Qatar to boost LNG imports.
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But Berlin came under fire for only coming up with a long-term solution, with no detailed figures on planned imports unveiled by Qatar.
The bloc has also come under increased pressure to cut all ties as soon as possible after evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Russian troops in Bucha surfaced.
The European Parliament unleashed fury at the Commission for taking too long to mull over oil and gas sanctions in a fifth package, calling for an immediate ban.
Several countries, like Germany and Hungary, have been accused of hamstringing the bloc from standing up to Putin by completely scuppering ties.
Spanish MEP Luis Garicano has said that the Commission is “not even trying”.
He said in a speech in EU Parliament: “Our energy addiction, our money, allows the killing of Ukrainians, the killing of fellow Europeans whose only crime was to believe in our freedoms.
“Is it not clear that our gas is tainted with blood?”
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