Israel Oil Refineries Signs Gas Deal With Israeli Consortium

Israel Oil Refineries (OILRY, ORL.TV) said Sunday that it has signed a deal with a local energy consortium to buy $350 million of Israeli natural gas over the next 27 months.

The deal comes as natural gas imports from Egypt remain halted. Egypt's East Mediterranean Gas Co. was the main supplier of natural gas to Oil Refineries and also enabled Israel to meet its natural gas needs in general, but an attack in April on the pipeline in Egypt has stopped imports to Israel.

EMG has said it expects imports to resume within the next month.

Oil Refineries said it has not changed its contract with EMG, but has decided to buy $350 million worth of gas from Israel's Yam Tethys field to make sure needs are met. The Yam Tethys field's stakeholders include two subsidiaries of Israeli holding company Delek Group Ltd. (DGRLY, DLKGF, DLEKG.TV) and Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. (NBL).

At 0729 GMT, shares of Oil Refineries were at 2.53 shekels ($.072), up ILS0.015, or 0.60%, and shares of Delek Group were up ILS12.90, or 1.48%, at ILS881.90, in a lower Tel Aviv market.

-By Sara Toth Stub, Contributing to Dow Jones Newswires, [e-mail]