Security officials in Egypt said suspected Islamic terrorists on Sunday blew up a natural gas pipeline in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula that carries Israeli natural gas to Egypt.
At least six masked terrorists planted explosives under the pipeline in the town of Bir al-Abd. It transfers gas to el-Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai, and a cement factory in central Sinai, the officials said.
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The explosion sent thick flames of fire shooting into the sky, and authorities stopped the flow of gas to extinguish the fire, officials said.
No group immediately claimed the attack.
However, a statement from the office of Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, read: "At the moment, the natural gas is flowing from Israel through the pipeline and reaching Egypt."
Another statement from the corporate partners operating Israel's Leviathan gas field, which supplies the gas to the pipeline in question, issued a statement late Sunday saying "there has not been any damage to the EMG pipeline connecting Israel and Egypt. The flow of gas from Leviathan to Egypt is continuing as normal."
Egypt is battling an Islamic State-led insurgency in the Sinai that intensified after the military overthrew elected but divisive Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013. The terrorists have carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and Christians.
They also have targeted gas pipelines between Egypt and both Jordan and Israel regularly since the 2011 uprising that toppled then-president Hosni Mubarak.
The attacks led to the collapse of a 2005 deal to export Egypt's natural gas to Israel in 2012. Israel's state-owned Israel Electric Corp had sued the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and Egyptian Natural Gas, resulting in a $1.7 billion fine in 2015.
In July last year, Egypt said it reached a deal with the Israel Electric Corp that reduced the fine to $500 million.
In recent years, Israel became a major energy exporter after gas discoveries in the Mediterranean. It signed a $15 billion deal in 2018 to provide Egypt with 64 billion cubic meters of gas over a 10-year period that will help transform both countries into regional energy players.
