Researcher Shatha Khalil *
Translated by : mudhaffar al-kusairi
The discovery and exploration in the Middle East region has proven that it contains huge energy from gas valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, but the overlapping fields between Israel, Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus, have created a struggle over this treasure, which may lead to the outbreak of war, especially since Israel and Cyprus have started indeed, by extending their influence and exploitation of some fields, from which a new term emerged that was called the economic gas war .
This file, which took an international political dimension in which economic interests and international relations are intertwined , noting that before the outbreak of the Arab revolutions, the State of Qatar submitted a project to extend gas pipelines through Saudi Arabia then Jordan, passing through Syria and Turkey with the intention of exporting to the European Union, the largest consumer of natural gas, but the deal failed due to the convergence of interests of President Bashar al-Assad with Russian and Iranian interests.
In the beginning… It must be pointed out to the exclusive economic zone, and what it means, it is a region determined by the International Law of the Sea of 1982, and it is the right of the state to extend to about 200 nautical miles within the areas of national jurisdiction, as the state has the right to engage in any economic activity, discovery, exploration, and exploitation for any fortune that falls within its exclusive economic zone, it produces the following :
– In 2003, Egypt signed an agreement with Cyprus to share the exclusive economic zone between them.
– In 2011, Cyprus announced the discovery of the Aphrodite field, with an estimated reserve of 27 trillion cubic feet of gas, and representing the highest global reserves, worth $ 120 billion.
-The Levitan offshore field located about 190 km north of the city of Damietta in the northeast of Egypt, at the southern foot of the ” Eratosthenes Seamount ” in the eastern Mediterranean, between Cyprus and Egypt in an area supposed to be purely economic for Egypt, contains contaminated gas with hydrogen sulfide, which will have to be removed at an additional cost, “which will raise the price of gas extracted from the field and difficult to market, while the field is 233 km west of Haifa at a depth of 1500 meters, as the region is one of the richest areas of natural gas in the world . But the map of the American geological survey that surrounded by suspicions indicates to a difference in figures , at the site of the Levitan gas field, makes it farther from Egypt, as well as the Tamar gas field, to appear farther than Lebanon in reality.
-Samson Field: It is one of the important fields located in the Mediterranean basin, and began developing in 2012 for the benefit of Israel, and its gas reserves are estimated at 3.5 trillion cubic meters, and the field is located 237 km from Haifa and 114 km from Damietta, which confirms that it is within the borders Exclusive economic borders for Egypt.
The three fields (Levitan, Aphrodite, and Samson) have reserves exceeding 36 trillion cubic feet of gas, valued at $ 240 billion.
By this … Israel will turn into a natural gas empire that possesses the largest gas reserves, thereby converting to the largest source of this energy in the Middle East.
Where Israel also signed with an American company, agreement for exploration and discovery, and discovered one of the largest natural gas fields in the Mediterranean, which is the giant Vitan gas field, and the largest in the history of “Noble Energy”, and is under Israeli sovereignty, and its gas reserves are estimated at more than 16 trillion Cubic feet, and Israel holds great economic hopes to exploit it and export its gas to neighboring countries, especially Egypt, Jordan and then Turkey.
After announcing the discovery of the Levitan field, Israel considered that it is the beginning of the way to convert itself from an importer to a gas exporter , and the Israeli Energy Minister at the time, Yuval Stein, spoke about “seeing when Israel is a major player in the energy market,” considering natural gas “the main driver for efforts to forge closer relations.” between Israel and Turkey . ”And on September 13, 2013, the company“ Turkas , the Turkish branch of ( Shell ) ”submitted a proposal to extend a natural gas pipeline from the Levitan field, which extends to southern Turkey, at a cost of $ 2.5 billion, and can transfer 16 billion cubic meters of gas.
According to the data and studies provided, Israel and Cyprus are the beneficiaries of these fields, while Egypt is heading to import gas from Israel, after Israel relied on Egypt with 43% to meet its gas needs.
Israeli targets:
From the excavations, Israel aims to achieve economic, local, regional, political and international strategic goals, and it is of great financial importance because of the enormous financial profits it provides to the Israeli treasury and contributes to economic growth for example, the agreement with Egypt alone enters 700 million dollars to the treasury of Israel.
In addition to the encouraging of European countries to Israel to take advantage of this enormous wealth, which reduces their dependence on Russian gas, which has stopped supplying Europe due to the Ukrainian crisis, and here we find that Israel, after the discovery of gas, presents itself as a substitute for Russia, especially as the energy bridge that runs between the eastern Mediterranean and the European Union depends about 25% on gas exported from Russia.
Gas in Syria:
Syria is the victim of international ambitions, the primary source in this regional struggle for controlling geographical regions to facilitate the passage of energy sources to consuming countries.
As the bet of placing a hand on a Syrian state has become a financial gain and a major revolution as it is a strategic location to facilitate commercial operations, especially in the field of energy, and make it one of the countries with huge gas reserves in the region, as Homs is a huge economic station, containing a vital hub in the global gas market.
However, the Syrian reserves of gas and petroleum are concentrated in the Syrian Badia and the coast at 83%, while in the Syrian Island there is only 12%.
According to recent studies, the wells of the Syrian island will begin to deplete from 2022, while the rest of the fields in the Badia and the coast, if they begin to be used in 2018, will remain until at least 2051.
And Syria’s ranking for the year 2008 in gas reserves was ranked 43 globally, at 240.7 billion cubic meters, according to the List of countries by natural gas proven reserves. While it was ranked 31 in oil reserves.
In 2017, the Syrian reserves of gas in the area of Palmyra, the Qarah , the coast of Tartus and Banyas were estimated to be the largest among the six countries, and this makes Syria, if this gas is extracted, “the third gas exporting country in the world”, and it will occupy a position that may compete with Qatar, Russia and Iran, The Ferrell Center for Studies estimates the Syrian gas reserves at 28.5 billion cubic meters.
However, there are three medium-sized gas fields north of Palmyra, sufficient to provide Syria with full electricity, 24 hours a day, for 19 years.
The volume of gas discovered in Israel is equivalent to 11% of it in Syria, in Lebanon 8% , and in Egypt 31%.
There are facts related to the conflict on gas in Syria that cannot be overlooked. They are:
– Moscow’s insistence on defending Syria, not only to secure an outlet for it on the Mediterranean, but more importantly it is gas and oil, and the establishment of a permanent naval base in Tartous to take advantage of the gas sea there, and Russia stresses that it is ready to fight a global war for gas, and the Syrian regime does not abandon Moscow, because it prolongs the life of Bashar’s rule, even if this is at the expense of killing the entire Syrian people.
– As for Iran … its ambitions in Syria are much more than Russia, in addition to the continued expansion of Iran and its terrorist ideology, and the British Guardian newspaper stated in a report that it has a strategic project to secure a land corridor that penetrates Iraq at the border point between the two countries and then northeastern Syria to Aleppo and Homs and ends in a port of Lattakia on the Mediterranean Sea, and the spread of Iran’s sectarian militias aimed at setting plans to advance in the implementation of the corridor project that will link them to Raqqa in Syria, through western Mosul, which is essential in achieving the Iranian goal of reaching to the Mediterranean sea .
And that Iran is trying to consolidate its feet in the region, to achieve its expansionary ambitions, as a European official closely related to the developments in Iraq and Syria throughout the past years confirmed that the Iranians have been working hard to implement their expansion project, adding that they will be able to transfer manpower and supplies between Tehran and the Mediterranean at any time they wish through safe routes guarded by their loyalists or others by proxy, and the corridor that Tehran has been building under the eyes of friends and foes, Iran’s opponents did not sense its danger until recently.
Here, the importance of the Syrian geography increased, because of its oil and gas reserves, and the pipeline’s passage through its lands, not to mention that the project does not become feasible for the old continent except by collecting and exporting reserves, so Israel pressed Egypt to link its fields to the Arab gas pipeline which connects the Egyptian gas to the Syrian city of Homs via Jordan, and to complete the energy process, the pipeline must be connected to the Turkish Nabb Line, which transports about 5 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, which the United States has paid strongly to build it .
Turkey and Israel:
Israel needs Turkey in all scenarios of energy delivery to Europe, as it could extend a line to the old continent through Cyprus, despite the obstacles it faces from the political and border problems of Cyprus, and from the depth of the waters.
Israel uses this line as a pressure card on Moscow to satisfy Turkey, whose problem is confined to the establishment of a Kurdish state on its borders, and Turkey seeks by various means to prevent the establishment of that state.
Although the Russians do not want the Turks to participate in Syrian territory, Ankara sees it necessary and safer for the future to interfere in the Syrian north and prevent the establishment of the Kurdish state.
It is absolutely necessary for the United States and Israel to reduce Turkey’s dependence on Iranian energy sources, which have largely become the only engine of the Iranian economy, accelerating the collapse of the economy and prompting the Iranian street to explode and bring down the regime.
This will help force Iran, which has the second largest natural gas reserves in the world, to pump gas shipments into the Turkish “Napp” pipeline to ease Russian pressure on the Europeans.
So, Russia’s assumption of a share of Israeli gas and participation in its transportation requires satisfying the Turks, who have so far managed to hold the stick from the middle of it, considering Turkey as the knot of energy pipelines heading towards Europe, and this also imposed on the Europeans the need to maintain calm on the Turkish stage, as a necessity for stable supplies to arrive.
In conclusion… It can never be limited to the economic side and financial gains, as the strategic and geopolitical dimension imposes itself on all allied and non-allied parties, as natural resources have never been a curse on peoples throughout civilizations, but they represent the true curse of authoritarian regimes and rulers destroyed state and society to be losers par excellence.
Economic Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies