Israeli law requires the gas reserves to first meet the needs of the Jewish state’s economy before exporting the remaining quantities.

By JNS

Israel’s biggest gas field, Leviathan, has exceeded its annual production capacity forecast from 14 billion cubic meters to 15.8 BCM, financial outlet Globes reported on Wednesday.

The first-quarter results were reported by Leviathan partner Ratio Energy, following the connection of a third pipeline to the gas field.

Before the laying of the third pipeline, the site’s production capacity reached 12 BCM per year, the report read.

However, bottlenecks in the transport of gas are still causing delays in maximizing the gas field’s full potential.

The Ashdod-Ashkelon pipeline is slated for completion in June, which will increase the capacity to export gas to Egypt.

The new Nitzana pipeline, set for completion in 2028 after two years of delays, is expected to release the entire bottleneck, according to Globes.

After these projects are complete, Leviathan’s partners—NewMed Energy (45%), Chevron (40%), and Ratio Energy (15%)—will make their increased production available for both domestic and external markets.

Israeli law requires the gas reserves to first meet the needs of the Jewish state’s economy before exporting the remaining quantities.

Israel last year approved Leviathan’s deal worth about $35 billion with Egypt to export gas through 2024. It remains the country’s largest-ever natural gas export agreement.

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Gulf officials warn continued attacks on energy facilities could devastate the global economy.

By World Israel News Staff

Iran vowed to continue disrupting the global energy market, warning that not a “single liter” of oil would be exported from the region until the fighting with the United States and Israel ends.

The Islamic Republic “will not allow the export of even a single liter of oil from the region to the hostile side and its partners until further notice,” a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement Tuesday.

The spokesman, Ali Mohammad Naeini, added that “attempts to reduce and control oil and gas prices will be temporary and ineffective.”

Naeini stressed that “trade in wartime conditions is subject to security considerations.”

Since the outbreak of the war, Iran has attacked oil infrastructure in neighboring Gulf countries and closed the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint for global oil exports. About 25 percent of the world’s oil travels through the maritime passage each year. The blockade of the route, along with attacks on refineries and oil reserves, has sent energy prices soaring.

According to a CNN report, Iran has recently begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz after launching drone attacks on oil tankers passing through the area.

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari warned that “the attacks on energy facilities, which have also happened on both sides, are a dangerous precedent.”

Al-Ansari stressed that “what is happening right now is going to have grave consequences for the international economy.”

Last Saturday, Israel struck Iranian oil infrastructure. The attack sparked backlash from American officials, who called on the Jewish state to refrain from doing so again in the future.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has long pushed for a war against Iran, wrote on X that while he supports Israel’s military actions, attacks on Iran’s oil facilities must stop.

Graham said those oil reserves could help bring prosperity to a future free Iran after the Islamic regime is toppled.

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On Monday, Graham also directed his criticism at Saudi Arabia’s decision to stay on the sidelines of the campaign against Iran.

By Grace Gilson, JTA

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has called on Israel to rein in its attacks on Iranian oil infrastructure, marking a rare note of caution from a Republican lawmaker who has said he helped push the United States to join Israel in waging war against Iran.

In a post on X on Sunday, Graham praised Israel for its role in the war before adding that “there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate, not the murderous ayatollah’s regime.”

“In that regard, please be cautious about what targets you select,” continued Graham.

“Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses. The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor.”

Graham’s post linked to an Axios article that reported that the United States was alarmed by Israeli strikes over the weekend that targeted 30 Iranian fuel depots. On Monday, U.S. gas prices rose to their highest levels since 2024.

The warning from Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump and staunch supporter of Israel, comes days after the Republican hawk told the Wall Street Journal that he had played a key role in urging Trump to strike Iran.

Prior to the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, Graham made several trips to Israel where he met with members of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he said he coached on how to lobby Trump to strike Iran.

“They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” Graham told the newspaper.

On Monday, Graham also directed his criticism at Saudi Arabia’s decision to stay on the sidelines of the campaign against Iran.

“It is my understanding the Kingdom refuses to use their capable military as a part of an effort to end the barbaric and terrorist Iranian regime who has terrorized the region and killed 7 Americans,” wrote Graham in a post on X Monday.

“Question – why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”

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All the Biden administration cares about is holding on to power by any means.

By Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Magazine

When Biden took office, he inherited the over 630 million barrels of oil left behind by Trump and other previous administrations.

This was not far off the high of 727 million barrels in 2010.

Biden allowed the reserve to begin falling and then catastrophically depleted it to improve his party’s chances in the 2022 midterm elections. And he’s been at it again in 2024.

Now despite failing to refill the strategic oil reserve, he’s talking about emptying it further from the 300 million barrels or so in order to have an outside chance of winning the 2024 election.

Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s Secretary of Energy, the former notoriously inept and radical governor of Michigan, promised in March that the administration would somehow begin refilling the SPR despite high energy prices.

US stockpiles of crude oil in its strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) will equal or exceed the levels seen before a huge 180-million-barrel sale two years ago, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said at a conference on Monday.

In March 2022, President Joe Biden announced that 180 million barrels of crude from the reserve would be sold over six months – the largest SPR sale in history – to combat soaring energy prices in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The US is now replenishing the SPR and hopes to bring stores back to the levels seen before Moscow’s invasion, Granholm told the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.

Spoiler alert: she lied. Biden will be emptying the SPR bone dry instead.

“The Biden-Harris Administration is laser-focused on lowering prices at the pump for American families, especially as drivers hit the road for summer driving season,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in May.

The government spending money to buy oil and then release it (while blocking domestic drilling) isn’t actually saving American families money.

It’s a bait and switch. And here comes the big one.

President Joe Biden is prepared to release more oil from the country’s strategic reserves if gas prices increase during the summer.

“We will do everything we can to make sure that the market is supplied well enough to ensure as low [a] price as possible for American consumers,” Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos Hochstein told the Financial Times. “I think that we have enough in the SPR if it’s necessary.”

We have less than 400 million barrels. And the purpose of the SPR is not an election-day stunt. There’s a reason that “strategic” is in the name.

We use 20 million barrels a day. At the current rate, that means we can last less than a month. Once Biden empties the SPR again, we may not be able to make it through a week.

We’re facing potential wars that would wreak havoc with global energy prices. And with international supply flows.

But the Biden administration doesn’t care about any of that. All it cares about is holding on to power by any means.

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