Egypt has resumed pumping gas to Jordan and Israel after disruption caused by an attack on the gas pipeline, the chairman of state-owned EGAS said on Monday. "It is being pumped now," Chairman Hassan al-Mahdy told reporters. He also said a new, higher price had been agreed with Jordan but said the deal did not include additional quantities of gas, a subject which has been broached in the past. Egypt's petroleum minister said on Monday the new price it had agreed for gas exported to Jordan was just above US$5 per million BTU, more than double the previous price it charged the Arab state. "It's slightly above US$5 [per million BTU] for the same quantities that we had agreed to before," Petroleum Minister Abdullah Ghorab told reporters when asked about the new price, adding that the previous price was US$2.15 to US$2.30. Israel said on Sunday that gas flows had resumed. A company official from East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG), which takes gas for Israel, said in July that international shareholders in the firm were pursuing legal claims against Egypt for US$8 billion in damages from contract violations in gas supplies. That followed disruptions caused by pipeline attacks. Asked about any move by EMG to seek arbitration against Egypt over the disruption of flows to Israel, Mahdy said: "We have not received any formal notice." Israel hailed the 20-year natural gas deal it signed with Egypt in 2005 as one of the most important agreements to emerge from the historic peace deal the countries reached in 1979. But there has been some uncertainty over ties between the two countries after political turmoil in Egypt that led to the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak. The Israel gas deal was unpopular in Egypt, where critics argued the Jewish state had been offered gas at prices that were too low. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Egyptian government is losing control in Sinai, through which the gas pipeline that leads to both Israel and Jordan runs.
