Foreign Policy: The UAE deal places Israel at the heart of the Gulf economy

The American Foreign Policy magazine reported that Israel is about to play a much larger role in energy trade and oil policy in the region, after the UAE's agreement with it strengthened a pipeline that was secretly built between Israel and Iran.

The

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that the desert oil pipeline linking the port of Eilat and the oil tanker terminal in Ashkelon, in which Israel was working as a secret joint venture with Iran before the Iranian revolution, will be the main beneficiary of the Israeli-Emirati agreement and will make Israel play a much larger role in the energy trade. In the region, oil policies, big business and oil investment.

Managers of the Asia Pipeline Company that manages the pipeline say that the 254 km canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean provides a better and cheaper alternative than the Egyptian Suez Canal and an option to connect to the Arab Pipeline network that carries oil and gas not only to the region, but to the seaports. That supplies the world.

At the expense of the Suez Canal

The magazine quoted Isik Levy, CEO of the Asia Pipeline Company, that this pipeline opens many doors and opportunities, and can reduce a large share of oil shipments that now flow through the nearby Suez Canal.

The report said that the advantage of this line over the Suez Canal is the ability of terminals in Ashkelon and Eilat to accommodate the supertankers that dominate oil shipping today, but it is too large to accommodate the canal, and the company's work has always been one of Israel's closely guarded secrets.

Foreign Policy pointed out that although much of the hype around the UAE-Israel agreement focused on other sectors such as technology, healthcare, education and tourism, the Eilat Ashkelon pipeline puts the deal in the world of petroleum, the beating heart of the Gulf economy.

She added that the opportunities for Arab-Israeli energy deals are now wide and profitable, starting with investing in the Israeli pipeline itself, to adapting it to transport natural gas or connect it to pipelines across Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East.

Opportunities for Jordan

Mark Sievers, former US ambassador to Jordan, said if the Jordanians do partner with Israel, there is enormous potential for all kinds of businesses.

In 1956, the Eilat Ashkelon pipeline, when it was built, was a massive project aimed at ensuring energy supplies to Israel and Europe in the wake of the Suez Crisis.

Most of the oil flowing through this pipeline came from Iran, which had close but secret relations with Israel decades before the Iranian revolution.

In 1968, the Israeli and Iranian governments registered what was then called the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company as a 50-50 joint venture to manage the export of Iranian crude oil through Israeli territory - and beyond by tankers - to Europe.

Transfer in reverse direction

The report pointed out that while the 42-inch pipeline was built to transport Iranian oil north to the Mediterranean, it is now transporting mostly in the reverse direction.

He continues that the pipeline is currently pumping the oil that is discharged in Ashkelon from ships sent by producers such as Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to tankers in the Gulf of Aqaba for transport to China, South Korea or anywhere else in Asia.

Running parallel to this line, another 16-inch tube carries petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel.