Buying from the Thief: UAE Firm to Buy 22% of ‘Israeli’-occupied Natural Gas Field

By Staff, Agencies

Amid the unashamed practices to deeply implement normalization with the Zionist occupation entity, the United Arab Emirates energy company signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding to buy Delek Drilling’s 22 percent stake in the ‘Israeli’-occupied Palestinian Tamar gas field for $1.1 billion, Delek said on Monday.

The deal, if completed, would be by far the biggest between the occupation regime and the UAE since their shameless announcement of establishing diplomatic relations last year.

Mubadala Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration and production company in 10 countries, is an Abu Dhabi state-owned company.

The sides said they hoped to complete the agreement by the end of May and that Zionist so-called Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz had been informed of the agreement. Delek Drilling shares were up 4.4 percent at $1.51 mid-morning Monday on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

Delek Drilling, which is controlled by Yitzhak Tshuva, is under the Zionist occupation government orders to divest its Tamar stake by the end of the year as part of the natural gas framework agreement to bring more competition into the Zionist entity’s energy sector.

Tamar gas field, Palestine’s ‘Israeli’-occupied second-largest after Leviathan, is located 90 kilometers west of Haifa at a depth of 5,000 meters underwater. It began production in 2013 and today sells most of its gas domestically with small quantities of exports to Egypt and Jordan.

According to the latest estimate produced by the energy consulting firm Netherland, Sewell & Associates in January, Tamar has proven reserves of some 300 billion cubic meters of gas and 14 million barrels of condensate after pumping 69.3 BCM of gas to date.