Israel has stepped up efforts in recent weeks to increase the number of natural gas suppliers, according to Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.
Speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv Sunday Ben-Eliezer said his ministry is currently in discussions with BG, Gazprom, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan about future supplies.
In the past few weeks a senior delegation from Gazprom held talks in Israel with government officials on future supplies.
In the past Gazprom has proposed the sale of up to supply up to 8 Bcm of gas annually.
The project is dependent on the construction of the Med Stream pipeline project from southern Turkey to Israel.
Ben-Eliezer said that he hoped that a final decision on the project would be taken by late this year or in early-2009.
In addition, National Infrastructure Ministry director-general Hezi Kugler held talks last week in Azerbaijan about future gas supplies.
Israel currently has two gas suppliers following the entry last week of East Mediterranean Gas Supply which began delivery of Egyptian gas.
The Yam Thetis consortium has began supplying Israel for the past three years with gas from its Mary field off of Israel's southern Mediterranean coast.
BG closed down its office in Israel earlier this year after years of fruitless discussions on an agreement for the supply of natural gas from the company's Marine field off of the Mediterranean coast of the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip.
But Israeli ministry officials said that contacts are still continuing and that they hope an agreement will eventually be signed.
Source: Platts
