Jerusalem (Platts)--18Dec2012/808 am EST/1308 GMT

The probability of natural gas arriving from the Tamar field in May 2013 is very high but if technical problems force disruption to supplies Israel will be worse off than in the past year, the chairman of Israel Electric Corp. said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Knesset Finance Committee, Yiftah Ron Tal warned that all signs point to the Tamar offshore field coming on line on schedule.

Commercial production at the Tamar field is due to begin in April. However, he said the big problem is the country's dependence on one transmission line, which was built in 2002.

"Any sort of disruption will put us in a very precarious situation," Ron Tal said.

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Earlier this year the state-owned utility was forced to switch to gasoil and fuel oil to run its gas power plants due to the cut-off of gas from Egypt and the faster-than-expected depletion of the Mary B reservoir off Israel's southern Mediterranean coast.

The Knesset Finance Committee Tuesday approved a government request to grant IEC an additional $500 million in state guarantees to cover the cost of the sharp rise in its fuel costs over the past year. The government has granted the company over $5 billion in guarantees over the past year to keep it afloat.

--Neal Sandler, newsdesk@platts.com
--Edited by Jonathan Fox, jonathan_fox@platts.com

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