‘Israel at risk of losing foreign gas firms to less bureaucratically complicated Lebanon’ | JPost | Israel News
▻http://www.jpost.com/Enviro-Tech/Israel-at-risk-of-losing-foreign-gas-firms-to-less-bureaucratically-complicat
The bureaucratic impediments plaguing Israel’s natural gas sector are deterring foreign investment and putting the country at risk of falling behind potential competitors like Lebanon, an industry veteran stressed at a conference on Tuesday morning.
“Time is not on our side,” said Maj.-Gen. Yossi Peled, CEO, Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co. “And I’m saying this as an understatement because it’s actually worse than that.”
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Unlike Israel, other countries around the world “are not just sitting around and waiting for all the decisions to be made by regulators,” argued Peled, who was addressing participants in the Israel Energy and Business Convention 2013 in Kfar Maccabiah. The bureaucracy involved with exploring and developing energy resources in Israel is often so complicated that foreign companies may become more interested in wading in other waters, he explained. In order for exploration and production to advance, however, such foreign investment is necessary, he added.
