THE TRUE REASON GAZA IS WANTED BY ISRAEL.. Armed robbery in Gaza - Israel, US, UK carve up the spoils of Palestines stolen gas. a LOT OF READING BUT THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS WORTH IT. Nafeez Ahmed Israel desperately covets Gazas gas as a cheap stop-gap yielding revenues of $6-7 billion a year, writes Nafeez Ahmed. The UKs BG and the USs Noble Energy are lined up to do the dirty work - but first Hamas must be uprooted from Gaza, and Fatah bullied into cutting off its talks with Russias Gazprom. It is clear that without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement. Israels current offensive in the Gaza Strip is by no means an energy war, writes Allison Good in The National Interest in a response to my Ecologist / Guardian article exposing the role of natural gas in Israels invasion of Gaza. This has not stopped conspiracy theorists from alleging that the IDFs Operation Protective Edge aims to assert control over Palestinians gas and avert an Israeli energy crisis. Describing me as a self-proclaimed international security journalist engaging in shoddy logic, evidence and language, Good - who works as a contractor for Noble Energy, the Texas-based oil major producing gas from Israels reserves in the Mediterranean Sea - claims that: Israel is nowhere close to experiencing an energy crisis and has no urgent or near-future need for the natural gas located offshore Gaza. While Israel gains nothing for its energy industry by hitting Gaza, it stands to lose significantly more. If you dont like the evidence - ignore it Yet Goods missive is full of oversimplifications and distortions. She points out that Israels recently discovered Tamar and Leviathan fields together hold an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas - which, she claims are expected to meet Israels domestic energy needs for at least the next twenty-five years while simultaneously sustaining major exports. Israel is not using Operation Protective Edge to steal the Gaza Marine gas field from the Palestinians, and it is irresponsible to claim otherwise, she asserts. Yet her blanket dismissal simply ignores the evidence. In early 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed new negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Abu-Mazen over development of the Gaza Marine reservoir. The proposal was made in view of Israels natural gas shortage following the cessation of gas deliveries from Egypt, reported the Israeli business daily Globes. US-based Nobles Gaza gas grab But since 2012, Israel began unilaterally developing the Noa South gas reserve in the Mediterranean off the coast of Gaza, estimated to contain about 1.2 billion cubic metres. According to Globes, Israel had previously refrained from ordering development of the Noa field, fearing that this would lead to diplomatic problems vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority as the field is partly under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority in the economic zone of the Gaza Strip. Allison Goods employer, Noble Energy, convinced Israels Ministry of National Infrastructures that the companys drilling would not spill over into other parts of the reserve. Israel wanted to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority to develop Israels Noa South reservoir, which spreads into Gazas maritime area, reported Globes. In the end, Israel decided to develop the Noa reservoir without any official agreement. Israels secret gas talks Despite repeated breakdowns in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to exploit the Gaza Marine gas reserves, Israels interest only accelerated. In May last year, Israeli officials were in secret talks for months with the British Gas Group (BG Group), which owns the license over Gazas offshore resources, over development of the reserves. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Gaza Marine holds about 1.6 trillion cubic feet in recoverable gas, and offshore Gaza territory may hold additional energy resources. Determining the size of these additional resources requires further exploration which, however, is limited by uncertainty around maritime delineation between Israel, Gaza, and Egypt. Senior Israeli sources said that the Gaza gas issue was expected to come up in US President Barack Obamas talks with Israeli leaders during his visit to Israel at the time. The Palestinians - who own the gas - were excluded The talks also included Netanyahus personal envoy Yitzak Molcho and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his capacity as Quartet (US, UK, EU, Russia) special envoy to the Middle East. Palestinian leaders, though, were excluded from these talks due to political sensitivities and the complex relationship between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. By October that year, the Financial Times reported that Netanyahu remained very supportive of the Gaza Marine gas project which would see the fields exploited on behalf of the Palestinian Authority by investors led by BG Group. If all went ahead, the fields could be producing gas by 2017, generating $6bn to $7bn of revenues a year. An energy industry source cited by FT told the newspaper that: Israel may now see Gaza Marine as providing a useful alternative source of gas, especially at a time when its pipeline imports from Egypt have been disrupted due to unrest in the Sinai peninsula. Mr Netanyahus government faces criticism and a court challenge from opposition politicians over its plans to export up to 40 per cent of natural gas produced from its own, much larger Mediterranean gas reserves. Israel, the industry source said, may feel that gas from Gaza would allow it to reduce its reliance on the consortium led by Noble and Delek Energy now developing Israels Tamar and Leviathan offshore gasfields. Quashing the gas deal But as Good herself noted in the same month in Dubais The National, there remained one problem: Hamas retains de facto jurisdiction over the Gaza Strip and, consequently, over Gaza Marine. The PA cannot negotiate on behalf of Hamas, and any agreement that Israel could make with Ramallah would certainly be declared null and void in Gaza. Israel also still refuses to negotiate with Hamas. And despite negotiations to exploit Gazas gas speeding ahead between Israeli government and BG Group officials, Netanyahu quashed a $4 billion economic stimulus initiative proposed by US Secretary of State John Kerry which included a proposal for the exploitation of Gaza Marine. Why was Netanyahu simultaneously pushing forward negotiations over Gazas gas, while also blocking and excluding any deal that would grant any Palestinian entity inclusion in the deal? Israels gas reserves inflated, consumption understated As noted in my article, and ignored by Noble Energy contractor Allison Good, the drive to access Gazas gas was likely magnified in the context of a report by Israeli government chief scientists Sinai Netanyahu and Shlomo Wald of the Energy and Water Resources Ministry. That report was submitted to the Tzemach committee tasked with drafting a national gas policy, but was covered up until Haaretz obtained a leaked copy. The Tzemach committee recommended the government to export 53% of its gas - reduced to 40% this June - amidst widespread allegations of improper conduct and deliberate inflation of reserve figures. Indeed, according to the report of the Israeli chief scientists, the governments gas policy is based on underestimating future Israeli demand and overestimating the countrys gas production potential. In reality, the scientists said, Israel will need 50% more natural gas than has been forecast until now and its offshore reserves will be empty in less than 40 years. Israels looming gas crunch The most optimistic estimate received by the Tzemach committee was that Israel would need 364 billion cubic meters of gas. In contrast, the chief scientists argued that by 2040, Israel would need 650 billion cubic meters, after which the country would consume 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year. At this rate, even if Israel chooses not to export any gas, it will entirely exhaust its offshore reserves by 2055. This assessment, further, ignores that not all the gas is likely to be commercially extractable. The upshot is that Israel cannot simultaneously export gas and retain sufficient quantities to meet its domestic needs. And if Israel exhausts its gas resources it will be forced to return to oil to meet its energy needs, even though global oil production is expected to start declining by 2035. The scientists noted that if oil output drops by even 15%, its price is likely to spike by 550%. These concerns are compounded by the consistent under-performance of several of Israels recent gas discoveries compared to the hype, such as in the Sara, Myra, Ishai, and Elijah-3 reserves. As Israel faces a 2015 gas shortage, Gazas gas is a cheap stop-gap Sohbet Karbuz, head of hydrocarbons at Observatoire Méditerranéen de lEnergie (OME) in Paris, points out that much of the gas was not in hindsight commercially recoverable. As he writes in the Journal of Energy Security, There is no certainty that it will be commercially possible to produce any percentage of contingent resources. Israels gas export policy, he thus remarks with reference to the much-vaunted Tamar and Leviathan fields, is based partly on a mixture of hype and hope on the one hand, and reserves and prospective resources on the other. Drilling in Israels Leviathan reserves which was supposed to begin in December 2013 has been postponed to later this year due to high gas pressures at lower depths. In the meantime, reports Jewish Business News, Postponing Leviathans development could have major repercussions on Israels economy, which will face a natural gas shortage from 2015. Israel needs the Gaza Marine as a stop-gap, but wants it cheap, and is unwilling to exploit the reserves through any Palestinian entity. UK Foreign Office - Israel wont pay the full whack Official British Foreign Office (FCO) documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Palestinian think-tank Al-Shabaka based in Washington DC shine new light on this. According to email correspondence between the FCOs Near East Group and the British Consulate General in Jerusalem in November 2009, Israel had refused to pay market price for Gazas gas. One Foreign Office official said: Israel wont (i) pay the full whack [for the gas] (ii) guarantee to give a certain cut direct to the PA. So BG arent getting the gas out of the sea-bed. They are content to exploit other reserves and come back to this one when the price is right. Another email dated 29th June 2010 noted that despite large reserves of gas discovered between Israel and Cyprus giving Israel the opportunity to become a net gas exporter, Israeli officials saw potential for the Gaza Marine to function as a stop-gap measure before the new finds come fully on stream. On 8th February 2011, UK ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould wrote to the FCO explaining that Israel intended to therefore seek the development of Gazas gas reserves as this would enhance Palestinian opportunities; reduce Gazas dependence on Israel; and diversify Israels sources of gas. [redacted] added that this last point had been given added topicality by the attack this weekend on the gas pipeline from Egypt. British Gas and Israel collude to exclude Hamas The biggest obstacle as far as Israel is concerned is Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the prospect of a strong independent Palestinian state. An April 2014 policy paper for the European Parliaments directorate-general of external policies points out that distrust between all these parties, particularly political divisions on the Palestine side have hindered the negotiations. After Hamas was elected to power in the Gaza Strip in 2006, the group declared from the outset that Israels agreements with the PA were illegitimate, and that Hamas was the rightful owner of the Gaza Marine resources. But BG Group and Israeli officials had come up with a strategy to bypass Hamas. A BG official told the Jerusalem Post in August 2007 that BG and Israel have arrived at an understanding that will transfer funds intended for the PAs Palestinian Investment Fund into an international bank account, where they will be held until the PA can retake control of the Gaza Strip. Under this plan, Both Israel and BG intend that until the PA is able to remove Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, the money will be held in an international bank account. Neither side wants the money to go to fund terror-related activities. Hamas must be uprooted from Gaza The plan was, according to an Infrastructures Ministry official cited by the Jerusalem Post, about circumventing the possibility that Israeli money will end up in the wrong hands by arranging a payment plan that would completely exclude Hamas. In the same year, incumbent Israeli defence minister Moshe Yaalon - then former IDF chief of staff - explicitly advocated that the only way in which Gazas gas could be developed was through an Israeli military incursion to eliminate Hamas. Yaalons concern was that Palestinian gas profits would likely end up funding terrorism against Israel, a threat which is not limited to Hamas and includes the Fatah-run PA. As preventing gas proceeds from reaching Palestinian terror groups is impossible, Yaalon concluded: It is clear that without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement. Yaalons concerns voiced in 2007 - and the prospect of using military force to begin gas production in Gaza - remain relevant today. As the man in charge of Israels current war on Gaza, Yaalon is now in a position to execute the vision he had outlined a year before Operation Cast Lead. Extending Israeli sovereignty over Gaza Thus, the exclusion of Palestinian representatives - whether Fatah or Hamas - from the latest negotiations between Israel and BG Gas is no accident. While PA president Mahmoud Abbas was independently seeking to reach a deal with Russias Gazprom to develop the Gaza Marine, Netanyahu had already made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state - which is why he deliberately torpedoed the peace process, according to US officials. The other factor in this equation is the legal challenge to the Gaza gas proposals from Yam Thetis, a consortium of three Israeli firms and Samedan Oil. Samedan is a subsidiary of the same US oil company, Noble Energy, that employs National Interest contributor Allison Good, and which has been operating in the Noa South field that overlaps Gaza. Yam Thetis principal argument was that BG had no right to drill in Palestinian waters as the Palestinian Authority is not a state and cannot grant such a right to drill in offshore Gaza. The upshot is that Noble Energys consortium should have the right to extend its drilling into the Gaza Marine on behalf of Israel - and at the expense of the Palestinians. Removing the obstacles - Hamas and the PA Since the Oslo Accords, although the PAs maritime jurisdiction extends up to 20 nautical miles from the coast, Israel has incrementally reduced Gazas maritime jurisdiction by 85% from 20 to 3 nautical miles - effectively reversing Palestinian sovereignty over the Gaza Marine. But with Israels determination to access Gazas gas accelerating in the context of the risk of a 2015 energy crunch, the fundamental obstacle to doing so remained not just the intransigent Hamas, but an insufficiently pliant PA seeking to engage the wests arch-geopolitical rival, Russia. Israels own commitment to blocking a two-state solution and bypassing Hamas meant that its only option to bring Gazas gas into production was to do so directly - with, it seems, the competing collusion of American and British energy companies. The IDFs Gaza operation, launched fraudulently in the name of self-defence, is certainly though not exclusively about permanently altering the facts on the ground in Gaza to head-off the PAs ambitions for autonomously developing the Marine gas reserves, and to eliminate Hamas declared sovereignty over them.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:16:22 +0000
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