Ankara is coming closer to Tel Aviv ... in terms of oil

In light of what is unfolded from time to time about connections made by oil Turkish companies with other Israeli ones in order to invest the discoveries of gas off the coast of Tel Aviv, talk about the oil dimension in the Turkish mobility toward Syria is no longer doubtful, especially in light of the expected decline of the quantities of the Russian gas, imported by Ankara, which was searching for alternative sources of energy to meet its growing needs. 

According to what is being revealed day after day, it can be concluded that after the difficulty of replacing the Syrian regime with another one that could respond to Ankara’s oil aspiration, the Israeli gas became at the forefront of the alternative energy sources that Ankara seeks to purchase and to invest in. 

Perhaps the latest indicator of this conclusion is what was mentioned yesterday by the Israeli “Globes” website, a specialist in economic affairs, regarding the issue that one of the Turkish companies planned to build a pipeline to draw gas from the Israeli Leviathan field in the Mediterranean towards the Turkish coast and then to European countries. The website noted that the huge project, its estimated cost is around 2.5 billion dollars, was disclosed for the first time publicly by a member of the Board of Directors of the Turcas Petrol company during an international conference on energy that was held last week in Cyprus, which was also attended by Israeli businessmen. Matthew Bryza said that his company is interested in extending the pipeline length of 470 km from Leviathan down to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, dedicated to import and export oil, or to the port of Mersin. 

According to the website, the Israeli gas inside the Turkish market will be facing the gas extracted in the Iraqi Kurdistan, and in the future will also be facing the Lebanese gas. Yet, there are no Turkish plans to import Cypriot gas for political reasons.  

“Globes” revealed that the option of exporting gas to Turkey accumulates in the recent period preference within the relevant departments in Israel in face of the other option, which calls for giving priority to exporting it to the countries of East Asia, what requires building a facility to liquefy the gas before exporting it, and its estimated cost is about ten billion dollars.  

According to “Globes”, there are a number of Turkish companies that are making contacts with Israeli companies responsible for developing the “Leviathan” field, which contains the largest discovered Israeli gas stocks, in order to conclude transactions related to purchasing gas and pumping it freely to Turkey via pipelines. The project, the Turcas Petrol announced its intention to implement, would have a capacity of 16 cubic meters of gas. According to the project plan, the path of the gas pipeline that is schemed to be built will avoid passing inside the Syrian territorial waters, and will have to cross the territorial waters of Cyprus, although the distance would last longer. In a related context, the Turkish “Melliat” newspaper mentioned yesterday that the process of normalizing the Turkish-Israeli relations had began despite the fact that no agreement has been reached yet regarding the compensation for the Turkish citizens who were killed in the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara. 

The newspaper said when Israel formally apologized to Turkey, the process of normalizing the relations began immediately, even if it was not meeting the required level. The Israeli Airline company “El Al” started to contact with the Turkish Airlines to restore its airplane’s take-off and landing movement at Istanbul and Antalya after being interrupted due to the crisis between the two countries. 

It pointed to the increasing number of Israeli tourists to Turkey in recent times, where the number of air flights between the airports of Antalya and Ben-Gurion increased by 65% comparing to the last summer season.