Egypt-Israel: The Leviathan gas field consortium, led by Chevron and NewMed, has signed an agreement with the state-owned operator Israel Natural Gas Lines for the construction of a new gas pipeline, named Nitzana, to connect the two countries.

The Leviathan gas field consortium, led by Chevron and NewMed, has signed an agreement with the state-owned operator Israel Natural Gas Lines for the construction of a new gas pipeline, named Nitzana, to connect Israel to Egypt.

According to press reports on September 16, the project, with an announced capacity of 600 million cubic feet of gas per day, is expected to be completed within three years. It will add to existing interconnections and would bring Israel’s total export capacity to Egypt to more than 2.2 billion cubic feet per day.

This project comes at a time when Egypt, after being a net exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), has had to resort to imports again since 2024, particularly via its floating regasification units.

The Idku and Damietta liquefaction terminals, which have a combined capacity of approximately 12.2 million tons per year, have seen their activity slow over the past two years due to insufficient gas supplies.

Increased dependence on LNG imports has increased the country’s energy bill, while domestic production, particularly from the Zohr gas field, the country’s largest, is declining. It thus fell from nearly 2.7 billion cubic feet per day in 2019 to approximately 1.9 billion cubic feet per day by early 2024, according to Egypt Oil & Gas and Rystad Energy.

At the same time, the country imported the equivalent of 14.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2024 (including liquefied gas and pipeline gas), an increase of more than 70% compared to 2023, according to the Ministry of Petroleum, quoted by local media. The Nitzana pipeline is part of the 130 billion cubic meter agreement signed in August 2025 between the Leviathan partners and Egypt over 15 years.

This development marks an increased investment in Egyptian gas infrastructure. In addition to optimizing liquefaction terminals, the land of the Pharaohs has also launched new exploration projects, such as the preliminary agreement concluded a few days ago between BP and the state-owned company EGAS to drill five wells in the Eastern Mediterranean.