First technical studies made on Turkey-Israel-India energy pipeline

Undersecretary of Turkish Energy Ministry Selahattin Cimen, Director General of the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure Hezi Kugler, and Indian state oil company IOC's Director B.M. Bansal attended the meeting.

 

Med Stream, a multi-purpose offshore pipeline project to connect Turkey and Israel via the Mediterranean Sea, is planned to transport oil, natural gas, water, electricity and fiber optic cables.

 

India is interested in the project to import oil from the line through Red Sea with loading tankers from an Israeli port. The project is estimated to cost around 8 billion euros.

 

Feasibility studies are planned to begin by the end of this year and would be completed in the summer of 2009, Kugler told the state-run Anatolian Agency.

 

Kugler said construction of the pipeline would start at the end of 2009, the earliest, or in 2010. He said it would take at least more than a year to finish the construction works.

 

Israel supplies 90 percent of its oil need from the Black Sea and carries crude to Israeli ports by ships.

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India is interested in the project as the pipeline would be short and economical for transportation, Kugler said. He added that India would get the better of time and cost as soon as the project is implemented.

 

Normally, crude is shipped to Far East in 50 days but when the Med Stream is completed it would take 19 days to transport crude from the Red Sea. It would also reduce vessel traffic at Turkish straits.

 

Turkey, Israel and India are expected to present their letters of intention to each other after completing their studies on the project, Kugler said. Mutual covenants are also expected be completed within a month, he said.

 

 

Kugler said that several other Asian countries, including China, could also be interested in the Med Stream project once the feasibility report is finished.

 

Israeli officials are still insistent on buying water from Turkey. An earlier project to carry water from Turkey's Mediterranean coast to Israel through containers was a high-cost project, Israeli officials said.

 

However, they said purification of sea water was costly as well. All pipelines in the world pump natural gas and oil but water transportation through pipelines has not been tried before, they said. Therefore deliberate technical work and infrastructure is needed, they added.