The Med Stream project is a multi-purpose offshore pipeline project to connect Turkey and Israel via the Mediterranean Sea, and is planned to involve oil, gas, water, and electricity transmission, as well as providing fibre-optic cables for communication. India is interested in the project because it could then import oil from the line through Red Sea, loading its tankers from an Israeli port and avoiding the Suez Canal and the Straits of Hormuz, among other bottlenecks. Feasibility studies are planned to begin by the end of this year and will be completed by the summer of 2009, Mr Kugler said.
Mr Kugler went on to say that construction of the pipeline could start at the end of 2009, at the earliest, or in 2010, and it would over a year to complete the construction work. Currently, Israel receives 90% of its oil requirements from the Black Sea via tanker.
Israeli officials are also keen on buying water from Turkey. An earlier project to transport water from Turkey’s Mediterranean coast to Israel in containers was a high-cost project, Israeli officials said, and purification of seawater was similarly costly as well. While international transportation of oil; and gas by pipeline are well know, the issues raised by water transportation internationally by pipeline are currently unexplored.
India, and several other Asian countries, including China, are interested in the project as the pipeline would be short and economic for oil transportation. Normally, crude oil shipped from the Middle to the Far East takes around 50 days in transit; when the Med Stream is completed, this could be reduced to 19 days to transport crude via the Red Sea route, which would also reduce vessel traffic through the Turkish Straits.