CAIRO: Egypt has resumed pumping natural gas to Israel after technical difficulties brought supply to a halt for a week. The Israeli press had reported at the time that Egypt was struggling to cope with the demand on its gas exports and had scaled down the supply specifically to countries who are buying it at lower than market prices such as Israel. However, Egyptian experts attributed the halt to a technical failure in the compression system, and correctly predicted that the supply would flow again once the error was fixed. "This [halt] is due to a technical fault in the compressors and they are fixing it, petroleum expert Ibrahim Zahran previously told Daily News Egypt. The gas deal to Israel has been met with widespread condemnation in Egypt, not only because of the recipient but also due to the extremely favorable price of the contract, a fraction of the market price for natural gas. Minister of Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Councils Mufid Shehab said in a parliamentary session that Egypt did not export gas to Israel because it was not the state or government that was supplying the gas, but a private company. The company in question is the EgyptianIsraeli consortium Eastern Mediterranean Gas (EMG) which has a contract initially for 15 years guaranteeing a supply of 1.7 billion cubic meters a year at the price of $1.5 per million BTU (British Thermal Units). Shehab added that the state's sole responsibility in this affair was to link the pipeline to the intended destination and that's why a memorandum of understanding was reached with Israel. The actual gas supply however, Shehab said, was the domain of the exporting company. The minister also said that one could not accurately ascertain a world price for natural gas as the price always differed from contract to contract. EMG is a private energy consortium co-owned by Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem and the Israeli Merhav Group. The gas being supplied to Israel specifically goes to the Israel Electric Corporation.
