Times of Israel: Palestinians to be first buyers of Israeli natural gas
The first buyer of natural gas from Israel’s largest gas field will be the Palestine Power Generation Company, which will purchase some $1.2 billion-worth of gas over 20 years, one of the major partners in the field announced on Sunday.
The Leviathan group will sell the PPGC, which supplies power to Palestinian areas in the West Bank, as much as 4.75 billion cubic meters of gas when the Leviathan reserve begins to yield in 2016 or 2017, the Delek Group said in a statement.
The Delek conglomerate owns 45.34 percent of the field, followed by the US-based Noble Energy with 39.66% and Ratio Oil Exploration’s 15%. Leviathan's estimated reserves – 537 billion cubic meters – make it the largest offshore gas discovery in a decade.
The Palestinian company aims to build a $300 million power plant in the West Bank city of Jenin to produce electricity from the gas, Reuters reported.