Jerusalem (Platts)--7Feb2011/546 am EST/1046 GMT
Egyptian natural gas shipments to Israel could resume within the next 36- 48 hours depending on the state of the pipeline leading to the East Mediterranean Gas Supply Company site in northern Sinai, a senior official at the company that supplies gas to Israel said Monday. The official from the Merhav Group, the Israeli partner in the EMG consortium, told Platts that a small portion of the gas pipeline leading to the EMG site might have been damaged by the heat of the explosion on Saturday that shut down gas shipments to Israel as well as to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. He said that an assessment was underway. "We should know later today whether a bypass will have to be installed at the site," said the official. He added that if this was the case, shipments would likely take a week to resume. The Merhav official added that the resumption of shipments to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon would take much longer as the metering and filtering station and adjacent segments of the pipeline were damaged by the attack. The Sinai explosion occurred on Saturday morning on a part of the natural gas network before it divides into separate pipelines that serve Jordan and Israel. There have been conflicting reports from Egypt as to the cause of the explosion and fire south of El Arish in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Initial reports said it was the work of "foreign saboteurs" but the Egyptian national gas company later said it was caused by a gas leak. EMG supplies Israel via a marine pipeline that links up with Israel's national transmission network off the country's southern Mediterranean coast. On Sunday, Israel's National Infrastructure Ministry instructed the Israel Electric Corp. to negotiate with the Yam Thetis consortium on an immediate increase in gas supplies. Egyptian gas accounts for 40% of total supply to the local economy. Yam Thetis supplies 60% from its Mary B field off the southern Mediterranean coast of Israel. The consortium comprises the US' Noble Energy Inc., Delek Drilling and Avner Oil and Gas. A spokesman at the state-owned IEC said the company would be switching some of its gas turbines to diesel fuel. All of the utility's gas turbines are dual purpose and can also operate on diesel. IEC said that it planned to increase the use of diesel, fuel oil and coal at its power plants and that it did not anticipate any disruptions in supplies. The National Infrastructure Ministry and the Defense Ministry ordered increased security around all offshore and land based natural gas infrastructure in Israel. The order was given in response to the explosion in Egypt.--Neal Sandler, newsdesk@platts.comSimilar stories appear in International Gas Report. See more information at http://bit.ly/InternationalGasReport