It was announced that United Arab Emirates’ Mubadala Petroleum inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Israeli Delek Drilling firm to purchase the latter’s stake in the Tamar gas field offshore Israel. According to the statement, Delek holds 22% of stakes in the natural gas field, and the MoU foresees the complete share transfer.
The amount of the agreement is $1.1 billion, the company reported. It is expected that the agreement would be fulfilled by the end of May. If the agreement is finalized, it would be the biggest transaction between the two countries since they reached an agreement to normalize ties.
The agreement came as part of the Gas Framework, which is a plan announced by the Israeli government in 2015 to attract operators and investors and promote competition in the gas sector. The plan also aims to prevent monopolization in the gas sector. Therefore, Delek is supposed to sell off its stakes in the Tamar gas field by December 2021, since the company also holds a 45.3% stake in the Leviathan gas field.
Speaking on the agreement, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said that “the MoU to sell a share of the offshore Tamar natural gas field to Mubadala Petroleum indicates the success of implementing the gas plan, which aimed to break the monopoly in this field.”
CEO of Delek Drilling Yossi Abu, on the other hand, highlighted the importance of the agreement in terms of relations between the two countries. “We are proud to have signed this MoU following the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement between Israel and the UAE”, Abu said.
