The Leviathan partners have reported signing the biggest-ever gas export deal to sell 130 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas to Egypt for $35 billion. The deal involves 22% of the entire Leviathan gas field and 13% of all Israel's natural gas reserves.
The deal follows up the 2019 agreement in which 19 BCM of gas was sold to and in effect triples the amount of gas being exported to Egypt. The Leviathan partners said that the deal paves the way for expanding production.
NewMed Energy (TASE: NWMD) CEO Yossi Abu said, "This is a historic day. Leviathan, the biggest natural gas field in the Mediterranean is a tool for changing the strategic reality."
NewMed (formerly Delek Drilling) reports that Egypt will buy the gas via Blue Ocean Energy. The deal will include the sale of 20 BCM starting in the first half of 2026, and an additional 110 BCM after completion of the expansion of production from Leviathan. Although it requires final approval from the Petroleum Commissioner at the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the green light has already been given in-principle for a deal up to 145 BCM, thus NewMed is not concerned about any regulatory obstacles.
The export deal will finance two major infrastructure projects for the Leviathan field. Firstly, a pipeline from the field to the production platform, which will increase annual production from Leviathan from 12 to over 14 BCM per year, and the connection of the Ashkelon-Ashdod pipeline, which will increase conveyance capacity from Ashkelon to El-Arish in Egypt by 2 BCM.
In the longer term, NewMed says that this is an anchor deal that will also allow for further expansions of production capacity from Leviathan, up from 21 BCM to 23 BCM per year. The Leviathan field produced 11 BCM in 2024. Of this, about 50% was exported to Egypt and the rest was divided between the domestic Israeli economy and Jordan. The plan until 2035 is that 60% of the gas in Leviathan will be exported, and 40% will go to the domestic economy, with Leviathan also increasing its production capacity for the local economy and supplying the new gas-fired power plants in Israel
Regarding supply to the Israeli economy, NewMed promises that "the expansion will ensure that, starting in the 2040s, Leviathan will make available to the Israeli economy the vast majority of the gas produced from the field in a way that will meet most of the natural gas consumption in Israel until the end of production from the reservoir..
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 7, 2025.
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