Explosive scandal shakes Tebboune’s Regime… Algeria supplies gas to Israel via Egypt
A new scandal has hit the Algerian military regime, which recently accused Morocco of “normalization,” after international media revealed that a ship that was supposed to load liquefied natural gas (LNG) from an Egyptian station left empty and turned to Algeria due to the shutdown of an Israeli pipeline that transported gas to Egypt because of the escalating conflict following the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
In this context, Reuters, citing expert Olumide Ajayi, reported that the carrier “C. Bic Catalonia” changed its course from the Idku LNG station in Egypt and headed to the Arzew facility in Algeria.
The “Operation Storm Al-Aqsa” and the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas led to the closure of the American company Chevron’s “Tamar” gas field off the northern coast of Israel.
Egypt relies on imports of Israeli gas to meet some of its domestic demand, and therefore, the disruption of pipelines means there is less gas available for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. However, the current events in Gaza have caused the Israeli pipeline that transported gas to Egypt to shut down.
This is not the first time that secret trade relations between the Algerian military regime and Israel have been exposed. Israeli channel “i24 news” previously revealed trade relations related to the export of gas and oil between Algeria and Israel.
In a report in 2022, the channel pointed out that Algeria‘s national oil and gas company, Sonatrach, exported at least 50,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to Israel.
The report also confirmed that the trade operation between Algeria and Israel was conducted through a major intermediary in the global hydrocarbon market named “Vitol,” which transported LPG from the port of Oran to the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
According to the same source, the “Algerian oil company sold several shipments of LPG to Vitol, which then transported it via chartered ships to Israel for the Israeli company Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company (EAPC). The port of Ashkelon in Israel received many boats and ships carrying Algerian LPG throughout the year 2021.
Sonatrach, the Algerian company, and Vitol used a trick to avoid raising suspicions in Algeria. They worked to have the ships depart from the port of Arzew in Oran Province, then stop in the Mediterranean Sea, often near the Greek coast, before changing their course to Ashkelon in Israel.
