India: Oil through Israeli pipeline?

India is gazing at Israel for a passage to energy security in the age of high oil prices, a move that will give Asia’s fastest growing economy easy access to the abundant Russian, Caucasian and Central Asian crude as an alternative to volatile West Asian supplies but will perhaps also raise hackles of pro-Arab political elements at home.

Top oil ministry officials and senior executives of state-owned refiners who look after crude procurement and shipping operations for their companies held talks with representatives of Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company Ltd, originally an Israel-Iran joint venture that operates a two-way crude and petroproducts pipeline to provide a land bridge between the Mediterranean and Red seas.
The company was formed in 1968 as an equal joint venture between Israel and Iran under the Shah’s rule to transport crude oil from Iran to Europe. When relations between the two countries were severed after the Iranian revolution, Tehran stopped taking an active part in the venture.

Though it is early days for a deal, using the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline will unlock for India the vast reserves of the Caspian and Black Sea regions, considerably shortening the shipping route for Asia. The oil from these regions now has to traverse Turkey and the Mediterranean for onward journey around the African continent to Asia, thus practically remaining out of bounds for India due to the prohibitive shipping costs.

The pipeline will also open an easier maritime door for oil from Algeria and Libya where India is pushing hard to get acreages and term supplies. The pipeline company executives told the ministry officials that using the Israeli link will also allow Indian refiners to use very large crude carriers and save in shipping costs.

Times of India