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AS SISI ACCUSES ISRAEL OF GENOCIDE, EGYPT SIGNS RECORD $35 BILLION
GAS DEAL WITH ISRAEL
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emma scolding, Sara Seif Eddien
August 9, 2025
Drop Site
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_ The massive deal will see Egypt redouble its energy dependence on
Israeli gas exports even as the war on Gaza has placed a strain on
bilateral relations. _
Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi - 6th President of Egypt,
Official Portrait
_Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi this week issued his most
strident criticism of Israel to date, calling its assault on Gaza “a
war for starvation, genocide, and the liquidation of the Palestinian
cause.” In his comments on Tuesday, Sisi also defended Egypt against
accusations that it was complicit in the suffering of Palestinians in
Gaza for not opening the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing to
allow in aid. “The claims made by some that Egypt is participating
in the blockade of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and
contributing to their starvation is bankruptcy—these are strange
words,” he said._
_Sisi’s comments came just a few days before news broke that Israeli
energy company NewMed had signed a record $35 billion deal to supply
gas to Egypt in the largest export agreement in Israel’s history._
_The Egypt-based independent news outlet Mada Masr has been closely
covering Egypt’s energy deals with Israel and first revealed in an
in-depth investigation in 2018 that East Gas, a company majority-owned
by Egypt’s powerful General Intelligence Services, was at the heart
of previous deals to import and resale Israeli gas._
_We are reprinting Mada Masr’s latest article on this week’s mega
deal with their permission. Like Drop Site, Mada Masr relies on the
support of its community of readers to sustain its journalism. You can
learn more about how to become a member of Mada Masr here
[[link removed]]._
_—Sharif Abdel Kouddous_
_This article was originally published by Mada Masr
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NEWS_ _with their permission._
A $35 billion gas deal announced on Thursday will see Egypt redouble
its energy dependence on Israeli fields as an expansion of a landmark
2018 deal between the two countries.
Per the terms of the deal, the Egyptian side will pay about $35
million more per billion cubic meters than it did under the terms of
the previous deal, a 14.8 percent increase, per Mada Masr’s
calculations.
Over the course of the deal, which runs to 2040, Egypt will import an
additional 130 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Israel’s
Leviathan field.
The deal, which is still pending key expansion in pipeline and
extraction infrastructure, was announced as part of a
shareholder disclosure
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Israel’s NewMed Energy firm, a partner in the development of
Israel’s Leviathan gas field.
The agreement marks the end of months of negotiations to expand the
volume of Israeli natural gas piped to Egypt to support the government
in meeting growing domestic energy demand. The talks have continued in
parallel to Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, even as the
war has placed a strain on bilateral relations.
The 2018 agreement saw the Egyptian company Dolphinus Holdings agree
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pay $15 billion for around 64 billion cubic meters of Israeli natural
gas over a 10-year period to Delek and Noble Energy, the partners
managing Israel’s Tamar and Leviathan offshore fields.
The buyer named by NewMed in the shareholder notice one Thursday is
Blue Ocean Energy, a company that Mada Masr revealed
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be a subsidiary of Dolphinus Holdings in a 2018 investigation.
Dolphinus and Blue Ocean partnered at the time to import and resell
the Israeli gas with East Gas, a firm majority-owned by the General
Intelligence Services.
The two sides have been in negotiations for months to increase the
volumes of gas piped to Egypt from Israel, a former Petroleum Ministry
official and a government source told
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earlier this year. The sources anticipated that Egypt would ultimately
accede to Israel’s demand for a higher price per million thermal
units of natural gas in the negotiations, since Israeli-piped gas
remains the cheapest alternative available to boost much-needed
supplies.
However, the Thursday notice cautions that there is “no assurance”
that the deal will be fulfilled, given pending conditions.
These conditions include planned expansions to the Ashdod-Asheklon
pipeline and to the Leviathan field itself.
The pipeline expansion agreement was inked in 2021, but its completion
date has been repeatedly delayed
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then. Meanwhile, the expansion of the Leviathan field is pending a
final investment decision and a transmission agreement with Israel
Natural Gas Lines, the state body managing the pipeline.
According to the notice, these terms must be met by September 30, 2025
for the deal to go forward. The parties to the deal can invoke a
six-month extension to this deadline if necessary.
The deal comes as Egypt faces a swelling energy import bill to fill
the gap between domestic supply and consumption. About a third of the
total demand needs to be met by additional inputs.
While the country currently requires between 4 and 6 billion cubic
feet of gas per day, local production has continued to drop to around
4 billion cubic feet, according to data
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earlier this year by the Joint Organizations Data Initiative
coordinated by the International Energy Forum.
Israeli fields are already committed
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the earlier agreements to export around 4.5 billion cubic meters of
gas to Egypt per year. Israel has repeatedly halted supply since the
outbreak of the war on Gaza in October 2023.
The most recent halt
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in June during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, when production at
Leviathan was paused amid concerns that Iran might target the
facility. This disruption meant that industrial facilities in Egypt
were without gas supplies.
Throughout Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Egypt has faced criticism
for not doing more to bring a halt to the suffering and killing of
Palestinians. Tensions have reached new heights in recent months as
the Israeli-orchestrated famine in Gaza worsens, with protesters and
critics calling for Egypt to open its side of the Rafah border in
order to allow aid into Gaza.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has publicly pushed back against this
criticism in recent weeks. Earlier this week, the president struck out
against the international community for its inaction and described
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allegations made by some that Egypt is participating in the siege and
starvation of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip as
“bankruptcy” and “strange talk.”
Faced with an energy gap over the last two summers, Egypt has adopted
triage measures that have included planned rolling blackouts, sparking
popular anger due to the lengthy outages, stretching for up to six
hours at a time in some cases, amid the scorching heat.
The Petroleum Ministry supplemented its energy mixture of mazut and
natural gas by boosting expensive liquified natural gas imports, which
are expected
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cost $19 billion this year compared to $12 billion in 2024, according
to a ministry report reviewed by Mada Masr. This costly pivot was
undertaken to get ahead of growing public discontent, government
officials told
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Masr.
A guest post by emma scolding with Mada Masr.
A guest post by Sara Seif Eddien Economic report @MadaMasr.
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