Israel Halts Tamar & EMG Flows As Fight With Hamas Continues

13 Oct 2023 Issue: 66 / 41 By: Peter Stevenson

Israel’s decision to halt output from its key Tamar field and flows from the EMG offshore pipeline linking it to Egypt will undoubtedly have knock-on repercussions with no end in sight of the ongoing war with Hamas.

As war rages between Israel and Hamas, putting energy infrastructure at risk, Israel on 7 October decided to shut down output from its 13tcf Tamar offshore gas field, while also halting flows just days later via the EMG subsea pipeline linking Ashkelon to Egypt’s Arish. While the Tamar field is located 80km offshore, the Tamar platform is just 25km northwest from Gaza and was targeted in 2021 when fighting broke out between the two sides, forcing Israel to order its temporary shutdown (MEES, 14 May 2021).

Although that conflict lasted just 11 days, the current outage could be substantially longer. Of Tamar’s 950mn cfd of 1H 2023 output, two-thirds went to domestic users, with around 300mn cfd heading to Egypt and minimal volumes to Jordan (MEES, 25 August). (CONTINUED - 1766 WORDS)