Citing a payment dispute, Egyptian Natural Gas Holding has announced that it is terminating its deliveries of natural gas to Israel, bringing an end to a deal that, since it was signed in 2005, had supplied Israel with 40 percent of its natural gas.
Media reports have focused on the impact this sudden termination of the deal might have on the fragile peace agreement between the two countries. But Brenda Shaffer, an energy policy expert at the University of Haifa in Israel, told Trend Lines that the news does not have serious implications for Israel's longer-term energy security, as the exploitation of natural gas fields recently discovered off the northern coast of Israel will ultimately make up for the loss of gas imports from Egypt.
"At many times, these disagreements over economic issues have had negative implications for the peace," she said. "But the gas supplies from Egypt have been erratic to begin with, so for Israel, this is really just a technical change."