Natural gas: Peace and Prosperity?

I am sitting here at The Kapiot Café in Haifa drinking a Southern Comfort while enjoying the beautiful view of the Namal (port) at my favorite pub. The port is laden with shipping both commercial and pleasure including passenger ships bound for Turkey, commercial freighters, and yachts of various dimensions. The manager of the café, Avi comes from a maritime family. His dad was one of the port managers and he spends much of his retirement boating and diving. Both the crew of the Kapiot and guests often discuss the search for peace in our region and the incredible economic growth of Eretz Israel in the past sixty five years. The answer to even greater prosperity and stronger ties with our neighbors may well lie under the Mediterranean waters just off the Haifa coast.
 

Capiot Cafe, Haifa

Two potentially huge natural gas discoveries occurred in this region in 2009 and 2010. The Tamar gas field is located in Israel's exclusive economic zone, roughly 80 kilometers (50 mi) west of Haifa in waters 1,700 meters (5,600 ft) deep. While there have been small oil and gas discoveries in Israel over the decades, it was the first large one in the country. Tamar alone, it is estimated, could provide 50% to 80% of Israel’s natural-gas needs for a decade.

The Leviathan gas field is a second large natural gas field located in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel, 47 kilometers (29 mi) south-west of the Tamar gas field. The gas field is located roughly 130 kilometers (81 mi) west of Haifa in waters 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) deep in the Levantine basin, a rich hydrocarbon area in one of the world's largest offshore gas finds of the past decade. These two discoveries alone offer Israel the potential to serve its own energy needs and be an energy exporter within the next several years producing substantial economic benefits.

The gas finds also have the potential to change Israel's foreign relations towards a closer collaboration with Cyprus, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and our Palestinian neighbors.

The possible enhancement of ties between Turkey and Israel receives a lot of press attention and is a one possible example.

Nearly four years ago, an Israeli raid on a Turkish ship MV Mavi Marmara bound for Gaza unhinged the relatively close relationship between the two countries.

Israel and Turkey have made efforts to mend diplomatic ties in recent months to resolve this damage and improve ties. The two nations have grown closer and have signed a draft agreement to compensate Turkey for the deaths of protesters aboard the ship; once finalized, the agreement restores full diplomatic ties. The two nations continue to trade and promote mutual tourism, which should expand with the easing of diplomatic tensions.

The port of Haifa

One of the benefits to the nations could be an export route for Israeli natural gas. A leading option for Israel to get its natural-gas riches to the market is an undersea pipeline linking Israel and Turkey. The Turkish market for natural gas is the only growing one (in the region), and the drive to diversify away from Russia will justify Israeli gas to join Azeri, Iranian and Kurdish gas.

In recent months Israel has already signed energy deals with Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Israel and Jordan signed $500 million natural gas deal.
The accord may grow into $30-billion partnership for Israel to become Jordan’s main supplier.

If all goes well, the latest developments could see first pipelines being laid between Israel and Turkey as soon as 2015, and gas cooperation between Israel and Egypt would allow export access to Asia's major markets.

I am writing this story while energy negotiation involving Israel and Egypt have been reported. Egypt and Israel have had only limited economic cooperation since signing a landmark peace accord in 1979. Political turmoil in Egypt in recent years has further limited cooperation between the neighboring countries.

Israeli gas could help ease domestic shortages, bolster the Egyptian economy, alleviate internal political unrest, and bolster trade and tourism between the two nations.

We in Israel and Jews throughout the world have just completed celebrating the holiday of Passover, which commemorates our flight to freedom out of Egypt three thousand years ago. The Jewish people spent the last two thousand years without our ancestral homeland, Eretz Israel. Sixty five years ago it was returned to us to build both a safe haven for Jews throughout the world, but many feel this also fulfills Biblical prophecy. Jews, Muslims, and Christians live together in a fairly democratic and economically robust society. Perhaps, indeed “a land flowing with milk and honey" is a reference in the Hebrew Bible to the agricultural abundance of the Land of Israel. The phrase is used in the Book of Exodus during Moses' vision of the burning bush.[3:1–22] Could milk and honey in today's world be oil and natural gas? Who knows! In either case, I and my friends at The Kapiot Café offer our readers a hearty Shalom or peace from Haifa, “the City of Peaceful Coexistence”.