Leviathan and the Egyptian Offtake
The Egypt offtake is what monetises Leviathan. The contract architecture, the EMG pipeline, and the LNG re-export through Idku and Damietta together make the Israeli gas economy commercially real.
The contract layer
The 2019 framework between Chevron-led Leviathan partners (NewMed Energy as the Israeli operating partner) and Egyptian buyers Dolphinus Holdings established the multi-year Egyptian offtake. Subsequent extensions widened both volume and tenor. The contract is the floor of Leviathan economics — without it, the project's unit economics shift materially.
The infrastructure
Gas moves through the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) pipeline, originally built to flow Egyptian gas into Israel and reversed after the regional gas discovery. The Israel-to-Egypt direction is now the dominant flow. Inside Egypt, a portion is consumed domestically; a meaningful share is liquefied at the Idku and Damietta LNG trains and re-exported as cargoes — primarily into European demand, particularly post-2022.
What changed in 2024–2026
European demand softened from the 2022–2023 peak as LNG markets re-balanced. The Egyptian offtake is now sensitive to both internal Egyptian gas balance and the European LNG arbitrage. The 2024–2026 cycle has seen renegotiation of price formulas and contract triggers, and a parallel push to expand Leviathan upstream capacity via the Leviathan Phase 1B expansion — a decision that depends precisely on offtake durability.
Why this matters
The Leviathan–Egypt axis is the working example of regional energy integration. The economic and political stakes are larger than the volumes alone suggest: it is the architecture that proves Eastern Mediterranean gas as a system.