The Cairo-based company known as Gasco, which operates the pipeline running through North Sinai, is almost done with replacing parts damaged in the blast on April 27, Abd El Sattar El Demerdash, general manager of gas network and engineering and analysis at the company, said in an interview in Cairo. The pipeline is part of a network that carries Egyptian gas to Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
"We are currently in the final stage of the mechanical work which involves changing the valves and other parts," El Demerdash said. "Once we are ready, we will notify the Oil Ministry, and they decide when gas exports could resume. It won't take them long to do so, but we have another issue, which is securing the pipeline."
Gasco is currently stepping up security measures by deploying more armed security men, increasing patrols and erecting barbed wire at several points along the 192-kilometer (119-mile) pipeline that lies 1.5 to 2 meters below the surface, El Demerdash said.
"We already had armed security men guarding it but they were sometimes outgunned by attackers," El Demerdash said.
Israel Deal Criticized
Unidentified gunmen last month bombed a monitoring room in the northern Sinai city of El-Arish, halting domestic supplies and gas exports. The ministry said at the time that the incident was an "act of sabotage" and that an investigation was underway to identify the perpetrators. The attack was the second in three months on the pipeline after a similar one on Feb. 5 during a popular uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. Authorities thwarted a separate attempt on the same network on March 27.
During the 18 days of demonstrations that ended with Mubarak's ouster on Feb. 11, some protesters were demanding halting gas exports to Israel, with which the North African country signed a peace treaty in 1979. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's biggest opposition group, and other opponents of Mubarak have repeatedly criticized his regime for exporting the fuel to Israel at prices they say were below market rates.
Ex-Oil Minister Sameh Fahmy and other former officials are being tried in court over the gas-sale agreement signed under Mubarak. East Mediterranean Gas Co., in which Ampal-American Israel Corp. owns a 12.5 percent stake, buys the gas from the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co., or Egas, and ships it to Israel via an undersea extension. A separate branch that splits from the Gasco-operated main North Sinai pipeline transports the fuel to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Egypt holds Africa's third-biggest gas reserves, with 78 trillion cubic feet (2.19 trillion cubic meters), according to data from BP Plc. It produces 6.3 billion cubic feet of gas a day, according to Oil Ministry documents.
--Editors: Rob Verdonck, Raj Rajendran
No comments:
Post a Comment