The growing chaos in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has again spilled over beyond the country’s borders. Gas supplies to Jordan were disrupted this weekened after a pipeline was attacked near el-Arish in the Sinai desert. The attack was not the first on that particular pipeline pipeline:

A security source said that it was not immediately known who was behind the attack, adding that preliminary investigations showed the attack was carried out by armed groups that opened fire at security checkpoints in Rafah and Sheikh Zweid. The pipeline has been attacked more than 10 times since 2011. Egyptian gas supplies to the Kingdom came to a halt after the attack on a pipeline in the Egyptian city of el-Arish early Sunday, an official source in the energy sector said.

Egypt traditionally provides energy to several of its neighbors, but the political and security environment in the country has traditional importers looking for other suppliers. Israel in particular is increasingly discussed as a future key source of natural gas to the Hashemite kingdom.

New Israeli energy reserves are being uncovered with some regularity. Last May saw another significant gas find:

“This is proof of the power of the Israeli gas industry and of the great gas potential that exists off the coast of Israel, and we must keep up the momentum,” said Delek Drilling chairman and Avner Oil Exploration CEO Gideon Tadmor. “These tidings from Karish join the growing volume of gas in Leviathan that was just announced two weeks ago. The energy security of Israel is intensifying with each discovery, and we cannot stop the momentum that has been created for the establishment of an Israeli natural gas industry.”

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