The Tamar partners and the Dolphinus Holdings have signed a letter of intent for the export of natural gas from the Tamar project to Egypt. Dolphinus Holdings is a consortium of major Egyptian non-governmental industrial and commercial gas consumers, gas distributors and entrepreneurs. Under the terms of the agreement, the consortium would purchase a minimum 5 bcm of gas from the Tamar field over a period of 3 years (minimum of 1.7 bcm/year); the total supply would be 250,000 MBtu/d (about 2.3 bcm/year) for a period of 7 years. The gas would be delivered to Ashkelon through the Israel Gas Lines (IGL) transport system and would be exported to Egypt using the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) pipeline. The EMG is an existing gas pipeline that has been out of service since attacks in 2012.
Discovered in 2009, the Tamar gas field operated by Noble Energy (36%), in partnership with Isramco (28.75%), Avner Oil Exploration (15.625%), Delek Drilling (15.625%) and Dor Gas Exploration (4%).
It has an estimated 280 bcm of gas reserves and started production in 2013. The consortium is negotiating the supply of 4.5 bcm/year of gas to Union Fenosa Gas' LNG plant in Egypt and of 1.8 bcm over 15 years to Jordan.