Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Thursday morning with the CEO of Italy’s state energy company ENI, Claudio Descalzi to discuss off-shore gas fields.
ENI recently shell-shocked Israel’s dreams for getting rich over natural gas by announcing the discovery of a gigantic gas field off the Egyptian coast, a find that is far larger than Israel’s off-shore fields that in themselves were huge.
Prime Minister Netanyahu made the following statement after the meeting:
As part of the growing strategic cooperation between Israel and Italy in a variety of fields, I see great importance to cooperation with Italy also in the field of energy.
He and Descalzi discussed new developments in the eastern Mediterranean basin gas fields, including ENI’s new discovery, and spoke about the future development of the gas fields in Israel’s waters.
They agreed to continue to promote the common interests of the countries and major energy companies in the region, including joint development or transfer of natural gas to different consumers.
Israel’s new infrastructure for Israeli gas might be able to be used by ENI to help transport gas developed off Egypt’s coast.
ENI’s CEO presented the importance of synergies in joint development of natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean through future allocation of resources, as well as through export and transport infrastructure of Israel’s gas.