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🇵🇸 Does the war in Gaza have anything to do with Natural Gas for Europe?

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The eastern Mediterranean is one of the regions where the world’s largest new oil and, especially, gas fields have been discovered in recent decades. However, the development and transport of natural gas are complex, as the region is a geopolitical hotspot. Nevertheless, the EU, which is seeking alternatives to Russian energy imports, is heavily involved in the Mediterranean energy geopolitics, leading to another conflict of interest with the USA. There are also natural gas deposits off the coast of Gaza, which were supposed to be developed this year. It’s not surprising that there are voices on the internet linking the recent escalation in the region to the international energy geopolitics. However, this is far-fetched. The debate is intriguing nonetheless.

Until the turn of the millennium, the eastern Mediterranean was considered a relatively uninteresting region in terms of energy politics. This changed rapidly in the following years. After initially finding smaller deposits, remarkable discoveries were made between 2010 and 2015, and new natural gas fields in the region are still being discovered almost monthly. South of Cyprus, the Aphrodite gas field with an estimated 129 billion cubic meters of natural gas was discovered. A bit further south, the Leviathan gas field was found with an estimated 450 billion cubic meters, the Tamar gas field with an estimated 307 billion cubic meters, and the Zohr gas field, which with 850 billion cubic meters is currently the largest known natural gas deposit in the Mediterranean. Leviathan and Tamar are in the Israeli economic zone, while Zohr is in the Egyptian economic zone.

The US Geological Survey estimates that there are deposits of up to 3,500 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean. To put this into perspective, it equals the gas reserves of Algeria and even surpasses the reserves of the Russian Stockman field and the Hugoton field in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, which is considered the largest gas field in the USA. However, on a global scale, the reserves in the eastern Mediterranean are overshadowed by the West Siberian fields of Jamburg and Urengoi (3.9 and 6.3 trillion cubic meters, respectively), and especially the truly gigantic South Pars field with its 35 trillion cubic meters, shared by Iran and Qatar.

One should avoid comparing apples to oranges in this context, though. While, for example, the West Siberian fields are contiguous and already developed and producing, the fields in the eastern Mediterranean resemble more of a patchwork quilt. They are technically challenging to develop and currently lack the necessary transportation infrastructure for optimized extraction. This is primarily due to political reasons at the moment.

Whether this deal, which was decided over the heads of Hamas against their will, still holds is questionable. It is also possible that Gaza will simply be excluded from the agreement, and the intended quantity of gas for Gaza will be sold on the world market through Egypt in the future. The kleptocrats around Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would likely welcome this. However, this is not a matter of weeks or months but of many years, as the Gaza Marine field would need to be developed for a significant amount of money, and the transport infrastructure does not currently exist, nor do the power plants on the Palestinian side that are supposed to convert the extracted gas into electricity.

Gas extraction off the coast of Gaza is therefore more like vague future music and, above all, a regional political rather than a geopolitical issue. The reserves are too small and insignificant, especially compared to the truly large deposits found elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean that are currently being developed. It can be safely considered as fanciful to suggest that the question of gas extraction is a motive for warfare for either Hamas or Israel.

Much more interesting are the questions that arise in the context of gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean for European gas supply. Besides the neighboring countries, the EU is the only major player with a real interest in the extensive exploitation of these reserves, including the construction of a transport infrastructure. Here, the interests of the EU partly collide with those of the USA, Russia, and Turkey. A resolution of geopolitical conflicts in the region would therefore be in the highest interest of Europe from an energy policy perspective. It can already be said that this perspective is diminishing more and more due to the military escalation of recent weeks. Another geopolitical defeat for Europe – not the first and certainly not the last if it does not finally emancipate itself from the USA, which also has diametrically different interests here.

These background details are crucial when considering the prospects for the gas fields off the Gaza coast. In the year 2000, the British BG Group, now part of the Shell corporation, discovered two gas fields named Gaza Marine I and II. These fields, with an estimated reserve of 30 billion cubic meters, are relatively small, constituting less than one percent of the overall reserves in the region. Political challenges also loom large. Under the Oslo Accords, the extraction rights in the sea off Gaza were awarded to the Palestinian Authority. It’s worth noting that the decision on extraction is made by the Fatah, not the Hamas in Gaza, as the latter’s representation in the Gaza Strip is not recognized.

Nevertheless, representatives of the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and Egypt had reached an agreement a few weeks before the Hamas attacks on Israel, 23 years after the discovery of the Gaza Marine gas field. The deal entailed Israel developing the field and providing the majority of the extracted gas to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for energy generation. In theory, this arrangement would have allowed Palestinians to operate two yet-to-be-built gas power plants in Gaza and Jenin. The revenue from gas extraction would have gone to the Palestinian Authority, albeit with concerns about corruption and kleptocracy.

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