A price war has broken out between Egypt and Israel over natural gas. Initial reports blame Israeli gas companies for the outbreak of hostilities, after they had truned down a request from the Egyptians to re-examine the concerned agreement signed under the former regime of Hosni Mubarak. Egypt's natural gas suppliers are complaining that the former president ordered Israel to be supplied with natural gas at an outrageously cheap price. Ex-minister of Oil Sameh Fahmi and wealthy fugitive businessman Hussein Salem are being investigated for pumping Egyptian natural gas to Israeli power stations for peanuts. Fahmi is currently being detained, pending trial by the Criminal Court. The supplies of Egyptian natural gas to Israel and Jordan were disrupted following two terrorist attacks on the main gas pipeline in Sinai. The Egyptians are determined to renegotiate the price of this commodity, because Israeli power companies buy the natural gas produced in Israel for a higher price than they pay for the Egyptian gas. The campaign for higher prices in Egypt is being led by the Egyptian Oil Authority, which has received a court ruling in Cairo to go ahead with its negotiations. The Administrative Court in Cairo revoked the Egyptian-Israeli gas agreement engineered under Mubarak. In its ruling, which was challenged by the government of disgraced prime minister Ahmed Nazif, the Administrative Court said that the agreement should be amended to drastically increase the price. The cheap price of Egyptian natural gas sold to Israel is said to have cost the State losses amounting to hundreds of millions of US dollars. According to reliable sources in the oil sector in Egypt, the Egyptian negotiators are optimistic that the Israelis will, at the end of the day, comply with the suggested price increases. The sources say that the international law governing such agreements allow changes in the price, according to regional and international developments. Meanwhile, a high-level Egyptian team is preparing to travel to Jordan to renegotiate the price there too. Egypt is the chief supplier of natural gas to Jordan. Unlike the Israelis, the Jordanians appear to be ready to pay more. Jordan revealed its willingness in talks between Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and Jordanian King Abdullah, during his recent visit to Cairo.
