For Moshe Gafne it is down to business and a day after the official ceremony appointing him chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, Gafne raised the issue of who has rights to Israel’s natural gas resources.
The meeting was held on Wednesday 16 Sivan, and Gafne raised the natural gas issue. The meeting became loud and Gafne was furious over the reality that the cost of gas in Israel is twice that of other developed nations. He calls on relevant officials to act swiftly to ensure the steady flow of affordable gas, especially for industry towards increasing competition which he believes will compel the lowering of prices.
Gafne stated he will not agree to any deal that leaves the profits in the hands of a few elite business tycoons. “HKBH gave the gas to all Israelis and not just a few of the wealthy” he exclaimed.
Gafne has made this a priority and plans to open the next committee session with the natural gas issue. “This debate is not comfortable for the coalition. We are demanding competition and not a monopoly. There must be price monitoring to ensure gas supply to factories, with an emphasis on periphery community” he stated.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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Hope he stands FIRM
Apportioning the revenue flowing from the offshore oilfields for the greater good , would potentially be a massive boon for all!
The natural gas deposits off Israel’s coasts are gifts from G-d to the people of Israel, said MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) Thursday.
By Yaakov Levi 1/1/2015, 2:18 PM
The natural gas deposits off Israel’s coasts are gifts from G-d to the people of Israel, and they belong to all Israelis – not just to the “tycoons” who funded the search for them, said MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) Thursday.
At a special Knesset session discussing the implications of a decision last week by the state regulator to demand that the companies holding the license for development of the Tamar and Leviathan oil fields allow competitors to develop parts of the fields, Gafni said that the companies, Noble Energy and Delek Drilling, didn’t deserve any special treatment. “They have for years been hounding me because of my views and actions,” he said.
“Already in 2004, when as chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee I legislated the Mediterranean Coast Law,” which prevents over-building on Israel’s coast, “the big builders began a campaign to pressure me to back down and let them develop as they wished.” The pressure grew significantly later on, when Gafni pushed for and approved the findings of the Sheshinski Committee, which recommended reducing the percentage of the sums the gas field developers could get from the sale of gas.
That pressure, said Gafni, included all forms of intimidation available to the companies. “It is hard to describe it,” he told MKs. “They went to our rabbis, they went to Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Elyashiv,” the now-passed leader of the Lithuanian Yeshiva community that Gafni’s Degel Hatorah faction represents, “demanding that he force me to back down. They told him that I had violated deals and promises, and that I was even responsible for harming Israel’s relationship with the United States.”
What they did to him, Gafni said, they are now doing to MKs, pressuring them heavily (in ways applicable to them, of course) to force the regulator to back down from breaking up their monopoly. “They have no qualms about using any and all tactics, including scare tactics, to warn MKs off from ensuring that all Israelis enjoy the benefit of the country’s gas discoveries.”
Israel’s Antitrust Authority last month ruled that US giant Noble Energy and its Israeli partner Delek would not be able to continue holding offshore gas field Leviathan over monopoly concerns. The decision effectively dismantles the monopoly held by Noble and Delek over Leviathan and Israel’s smaller offshore gas findings…