In a landmark move, Israel joined the club of oil exporting nations by shipping the first-ever oil tanker to Europe. On Tuesday, Israel flagged off the first shipment containing light crude oil — a low-density liquid petroleum extracted from natural gas.
In June 2022, European Union signed a major energy deal with Israel. Europe is eying Israel’s vast natural gas reserves to meet its energy demands as Russian exports dry out following the war in Ukraine and the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines.
The Times of Israel reported:
Israel has exported crude oil material for the first time, with a shipment headed to Europe from the country’s offshore Karish gas field, according to an announcement Tuesday by Greek gas company Energean. The London- and Tel Aviv-listed firm is in charge of production at the Karish and Tanin natural gas fields in Israel’s economic waters in the Mediterranean.In a statement Tuesday, Energean said “the first ever lifting of an Israeli crude oil cargo has taken place at the company’s Karish field,” and a cargo ship of hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs) extracted from natural gas (and then used in a mixture to make crude oil) was exported to global markets “for the first time in the history of Israeli oil and gas production.”“This creates a significant differentiated income stream, fundamentally separate to gas-derived revenues,” Energean said, welcoming Israel into the “club of international oil exporters.” The cargo was “sold as part of a multi-cargo marketing agreement with Vitol; the first of a new source of East Med energy to reach Europe,” it added. (…)The Karish and Tanin fields contain a total of around 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas. About 12 billion cubic meters are consumed annually in Israel.Karish is Israel’s third offshore natural gas rig, joining Tamar and Leviathan, with each connected to the mainland by separate infrastructure. Israel began exporting natural gas in 2017 — in a first deal with neighboring Jordan and then Egypt — as it started a path toward energy independence which has largely shielded it from the worst of the ongoing energy crisis sparked by the Russian war on Ukraine last year.
Noting Israel’s emergence as a global energy player, the London-based Financial Times reported Tuesday:
Israel’s lack of domestic gas and oil production was a point of weakness for much of its history following its 1948 independence, with many of the world’s largest oil producers in the Middle East refusing to supply the country.But in the past decade, multiple discoveries in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean have helped reduce Israel’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.Israel is now self-sufficient in natural gas, which has reduced its reliance on coal and helped smooth ties with its neighbours through export agreements to Egypt and Jordan, although it still imports the majority of its crude oil.
With Israel becoming a significant energy exporter, its offshore drilling operations are increasingly threatened by Iran-backed terrorism.
Tuesday’s shipment to Europe came from Israel’s Karish offshore gas field, which has been in the crosshairs of the pro-Iran Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. In the past, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah threatened to hit the Israeli gas fields. Israel’s use of “Karish rig for gas drilling in the area of the border is aggression against Lebanon,” he declared in June 2022.
Israel has placed a sea-borne Iron Dome anti-missile battery to protect its offshore rigs.
“EU looking to Israel to help it reduce energy reliance on Russia” (June 2022)
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY