Gazan gas reserves behind Israeli offensive: expert

By Selen Tonkus

ANKARA 

Israel's latest offensive in Gaza is linked directly to the desire to control Gaza's so far untapped gas resources, according to Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, the founding executive director of the London-based Institute for Policy Research and Development.

Ahmed told the Anadolu Agency on Thursday that Israel sees Hamas as the fundamental obstacle to its gas development plans, and added: "It is intent on weakening the group to allow Israel to enforce conditions on the ground favorable to Israeli interests in dominating the gas (reserves)."

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, signed an agreement with Palestinian Authority in 1991 for it to grant oil and gas exploration rights for 25 years.

BG is licensed to explore gas in the entire Gazan offshore marine area and it had discovered around 38 billion cubic meters of gas in two fields, Marine 1 and Marine 2, which is worth about $4 billion.

Ahmed said that, as any transfer of Gazan gas to Israel would have to include Hamas, Hamas would either benefit from the royalties or else sabotage the project.

Therefore, Israel thinks it cannot drill offshore from Gaza without eliminating Hamas, Ahmed said.

Meanwhile, Israel has also discovered two natural gas fields near Haifa; the Tamar field which is an estimated 280 billion cubic meters, and the bigger Leviathan, with an estimated 530 billion cubic meters.

Tamar started production in March, while Leviathan is due to start operating in 2016 or 2017.

The Gaza Marine gas field is located 30km off the coast of the Gaza Strip, lying at a depth of 603 meters.

Palestine aims to generate substantial revenues of about $2.4 billion, and save $560m annually by stopping its imports of electricity from Israel.

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