Analysts said on Thursday that a tanker that was seeking to load liquefied natural gas from an Egyptian terminal left empty and turned into another in Algeria after an Israeli pipeline carrying gas to Egypt was halted due to the worsening of the conflict following the continued Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
Reuters quoted expert Olomid Ajayi as saying that the tanker Sea Peak Catalonia had changed course from Egypt's Idku LNG terminal and was now heading to the Arzew facility in Algeria.
The American company Chevron had announced on the 10th of this month, the closure of the gas field "Tamar", off the northern coast of Israel after the operation "Al-Aqsa flood" launched by the Palestinian resistance led by the Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas), on the seventh of this month.
Chevron has suspended exports via the East Mediterranean subsea gas pipeline that runs from Ashkelon in southern Israel to Egypt.
Ajayi explained that Egypt relies on Israeli gas imports to meet some domestic demand, so cutting pipelines means there is less gas available for LNG exports.
He added that 50% of Egyptian exports have been sold since the beginning of the year to the European Union and Britain.
However, Egypt has not exported any LNG since July amid rising domestic demand this summer, and exports were due to resume this month.
Egypt imports about 7 billion cubic feet a year of natural gas from Israel's Tamar and Leviathan gas fields, according to data from consulting firm Rystad Energy.
The company said in a note that Egypt exported 3.7 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas from October 2022 to January 2023.
Aditya Sarasawat, head of upstream activity research at Rystad Energy, said the conflict was likely to have a limited impact on spot European gas prices given the current mild weather, full inventories and the potential for increased U.S. LNG imports. However, he warned that the continuation and expansion of the conflict would drive up energy prices.
The Palestinian resistance operations have caused the Israeli economy losses in a number of financial and productive sectors, in addition to the decline of the shekel and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
In response to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the occupation, the Israeli occupation army is launching intensive bombardment of Gaza, leaving 3500,<> martyrs, most of them women and children.