[link to greenprophet.com]
Natural Gas Alternative For the Middle East

Jul 27th, 2008 by Maurice Picow

“If the Israeli government can ever formulate a binding peace accord with the Palestinians, both entities could have access to enough natural gas reserves to satisfy their energy needs for at least 100 years.”

This statement was made a few years back by a representative of British Gas, one of the world’s largest energy exploration and development companies specializing in finding and developing natural gas fields, including offshore ones in bodies of water such as the Mediterranean Sea.

Such a gas field has been discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean, with the major portion located about 50 kilometers off the coast of Gaza, Another smaller gas field is located a similar distance off Israel’s northern port city, Haifa; but it is much smaller than the Gaza gas field.

British Gas, usually known as BG, had offices based in Israel for several years, with the main purpose of working out an arrangement in which Israel would supply electricity, petroleum products and other needed energy supplies to the Palestinians in return for the right to produce natural gas from the main Gaza field. Although this barter arrangement sounded good in principle, political realities, especially following the take over of Gaza by Hamas in 2006, virtually shelved this idea, and the Israeli government wound up making another natural gas supply deal with Egypt, much to the chagrin of BG who saw their entire 5 year venture in Israel go down the drain.