Egypt has promised an Arab conference it will cut off all natural gas sales to Israel, according to Arutz Sheva, the Israeli National News agency.

“Egypt, which currently provides about 40 percent of Israel’s natural gas through its Sinai Peninsula pipeline,” writes Chana Ya’ar for the agency,  “has reportedly agreed to halt sales to the Jewish State during a conference in Tehran, according to the Iranian FARS news agency. So has Qatar, which in the past has expressed its willingness to sell gas to Israel if the Egyptian supply were to vanish.”

If the report is true, fuel prices in Israel could skyrocket until the Jewish State secures another source.

“Due to at least six terrorist attacks and sabotage this year alone,” writes Ya’ar, “the amount of diesel fuel used to generate electricity rose by 103 percent since January, as compared with the same period a year ago.”

Arutz Sheva also reports:

The delegation from Cairo was among dozens of others at the 5th International Conference on the Palestinian Intifada, where participants announced the agreement to cut the supply of natural gas to Israel from their countries in a final statement issued by the “Political Groups and Parties’ Commission.”

The two-day conference was reportedly attended by more than 50 parliamentary delegations, state officials and others from Muslim and non-Muslim nations. Among the countries in attendance were Jordan, Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Oman, Afghanistan, Mexico, Hungary, Bolivia, Paraguay, Cuba, and Colombia.

The statement also included support for “the Palestinian Intifada” and regional uprisings and revolutions, and stressed the need to “increase pressure on international courts which shrug off pursuing the crimes of the Zionist regime.”

Meanwhile, an Italian company, Micoperi Marine Contgractors, has won the bid to build an offshore terminal that will enable Israel to import natural gas from other sources, reported Amiram Barkat for the Israeli business news website Globes. 

The project is scheduled to begin deliveries by the end of 2012 and will use a buoy offloader manufactured in Norway, reported Globes:

When completed, the buoy will enable Israel Electric Corporation to make up the shortfall in gas since the cut-off of Egyptian gas in the aftermath of the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, and the attacks on gas pipelines in Sinai.

The natural gas buoy became critical for the Israeli economy with the disruptions in Egyptian gas deliveries, Globes reported: 

The buoy’s importance increased further with the faster than planned depletion of Israel’s sole source, the Yam Tethys reservoir, due to higher pumping to meet the gas shortage.

The buoy should save electricity consumers $500 million a year.