Israeli pipeline to margin Suez canal

The Israeli Eilat Asqalan for oil pipelines has launched a plan to strengthen Israel's role in transporting, and storing oil and trading in it, the Middle East Economic Survey reported on Monday.

The bulletin said that "one of the main points in the plan will be transporting the "Russian Orale oil" as well as the oil produced in the Mediterranean through Eilat- Asqalan oil pipeline with the aim of exporting it to the Asian markets."

The Bulletin added that transporting oil through the Red Sea will be an alternative for the Suez canal or the South Africa's Cape for ships which head from the Red Sea to the East.

The plan states to carry out works in order to convert the course of the oil pipeline in the two sides. The pipeline is of a length of 254 Km and was originally erected to transport the Iranian oil from the Red Sea towards the Mediterranean during the rule of the Iranian Shah who was toppled in 1979.

At the meantime, the pipeline whose capacity is 1.2 million barrel per day transports the Egyptian crude oil which is transported to Israeli refiners in Haifa and Ashdoud.

The works which the set plan recommended to implement and presumed to be completed in the last season of 2003 will permit "the transport of crude oil regularly both ways," while the company will achieve highest profits," according to the report.