The government of Israel on Sunday announced that it had reached an agreement for the development of the offshore Gaza Marine reservoir of natural gas. The announcement came after rumors had circulated for some time that Israel and its neighbors were negotiating a deal that would allow for the development of the field.
Located of the Gaza shore and discovered in 2000 by BG Group – a British multinational oil and gas company now owned by Royal Dutch Shell – Gaza Marine is a natural gas field about 22 miles into the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 2,000 feet (610 m).
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In a statement on the matter, the Prime Minister’s Office said that in the framework of the existing efforts between the State of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA), with emphasis on Palestinian economic development and maintaining security stability in the region, it was decided to develop the Gaza Marine gas field off the coast of Gaza.
Implementing the project, it said, is subject to coordination between the security services and direct dialogue with Egypt, in coordination with the PA, and the completion of inter-ministerial staff work led by the National Security Council, in order to maintain the security and diplomatic interests of the State of Israel on the matter.
According to MITVIM, the Israel Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, the development of the Marine gas field off the Gaza coast is a new element that “could and should help” with Israel’s long-term interest in preventing the strengthening of the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza. The development could take place under the auspices of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) established last year in Cairo, they explain. That would allow the sides to overcome the internal Palestinian political crisis stemming from the split between Hamas and the PA and hampering the development of the gas field. It could also resolve the severe crisis in the Palestinian energy sector and ease the economic hardship in the Gaza Strip.
