(Nikkei Asian Review-Japan) Brenda Shaffer, an international energy expert and professor at Georgetown University who is currently on sabbatical from Israel's University of Haifa, does not see the new Egyptian gas field discovery as negative. "Over the last five years, Egypt has had extensive power outages which have really affected political stability in the county....Egypt has actually been importing very expensive liquid natural gas to try and keep the lights on....This gas discovery is a tremendous opportunity for el-Sisi to stabilize the regime....It's possible...within three years [that the gas] will be serving the domestic market....Because of the urgency...the Egyptian government will do everything possible and provide incentives for this to happen." "I think the prospects of Israeli [gas] export to Egypt were small and overstated in the first place, so I don't think this really precludes the Israeli development of [the] Leviathan [gas field]....I don't think it has to be a source of conflict because basically, for Egypt, most of this will go to the domestic market and most of Leviathan will go to the Israeli domestic market."
2015-09-02 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive