Jordan was left without gas: Israel stopped exports

Due to the threat of Iranian attacks in Israel, two of the three large offshore gas fields were stopped and exports were stopped. The first to suffer was Jordan, which was left without fuel for power plants. It is being replaced with an alternative and more expensive one.

By order of the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, production at the Leviathan and gas fields was stopped in Israel. Karish. The state-owned company The Israel Natural Gas Lines Company notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) about this: Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Eli Cohen ordered to temporarily suspend the flow of natural gas from the Karish and Leviathan offshore gas fields due to security threats.

The decline in gas production in Israel affected primarily exports from the country. He stopped. Egypt and Jordan were left without supplies. For the latter, Israel was the only source of gas.

Government Minister of Public Relations Mohammad Momani told The Jordan Times that supplies stopped early on Friday morning and power plants had to be urgently switched to fuel oil and diesel fuel..

"In response to this, the Ministry of Energy has activated its emergency protocols and switched to alternative fuels to maintain electricity production throughout the country," Mohammad Momani said.

According to him, there is no threat to Jordan's energy security. However, more expensive fuel puts additional financial pressure on the national budget.

Energy expert and economist Amer Shobaki told The Jordan Times that with a prolonged absence of gas supplies, the government will be forced to resort to borrowing to cover additional costs and prevent power outages.

As the expert noted, power plants currently have fuel reserves sufficient to operate for up to 14 days, while the floating LNG storage facility in Aqaba has emergency reserves for 7-10 days, providing a vital buffer in the short term.

As Argus notes, coincidentally, Jordan no longer has an LNG terminal, as the regasification vessel has left to work in Egypt.

At the same time, Egypt was not ready to stop supplies. In recent years, Egypt has again become an importer of gas and the shutdown of Israeli fuel supplies has forced the government to reduce the shipment of gas to fertilizer plants.

Egypt plans to have four LNG receiving terminals, but so far there is only one in the Red Sea, and it is operating at full capacity.