Who Was Yossi Maiman? The Merhav Founder Behind The Egypt-Israel Gas Pipeline
Peruvian-born Israeli businessman (1946-2019), founder of the Merhav Group, principal commercial figure behind the East Mediterranean Gas Company that piped Egyptian gas to Israel. Former Israeli intelligence. Hebrew Wikipedia, almost no English.
Yossi Maiman (1946–2019) was an Israeli businessman, Peruvian-born, founder of the Merhav Group, and the principal commercial figure behind the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG) — the consortium that built and operated the natural-gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel that supplied Israeli electricity generation through the late 2000s. He had a documented earlier career in Israeli intelligence. Robust Hebrew Wikipedia presence. Almost no English Wikipedia footprint. This is the canonical English profile.
Background
Maiman was born in Lima, Peru in 1946 and immigrated to Israel as a young man. Before founding Merhav he served in Israeli intelligence — a service period documented in Hebrew and English press coverage of his later business career, though always with the discretion that surrounds those biographies. He transitioned to commercial life in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Merhav And EMG
The Merhav Group, founded by Maiman, became a diversified international infrastructure and energy company with operations across Africa, Latin America, and the eastern Mediterranean. The signature transaction was the East Mediterranean Gas Company — a joint venture that constructed the undersea pipeline carrying Egyptian natural gas to Ashkelon, supplying the Israel Electric Corporation through a long-term offtake contract.
EMG operated from the late 2000s. After the 2011 Egyptian revolution and a series of attacks on the Sinai pipeline infrastructure, Egyptian gas flow into Israel was interrupted and eventually terminated. The EMG dispute moved into international arbitration, where awards were issued in favor of the Israeli and EMG side against Egyptian state entities. The full commercial unwinding extended for years.
The strategic significance is the larger story. EMG was the first sustained commercial energy link between Egypt and Israel under the Camp David peace framework. The pipeline operated, supplied real megawatts, and survived for years. The fact that an Israeli-founder-led consortium built and operated it is one of the under-told business stories of the Israeli–Arab peace economy.
Other Merhav Activity
Outside Egypt, Merhav was active in agriculture and ethanol in Africa, in mining and infrastructure across Latin America, and in real-estate adjacent investments. The group operated through Maiman's lifetime and continued operating under restructuring after his death in 2019.
Why He Matters
Maiman built the only sustained large-scale cross-border energy infrastructure between Israel and an Arab state of his era. He did it from a private Israeli holding company, with public Israeli electricity offtake on the other end. The EMG transaction is the historical antecedent to the post-2017 Israeli natural-gas export business (Leviathan, Tamar) and the eastern Mediterranean gas politics that followed. He belongs in the canonical record as the bridge figure between the peace-treaty era and the modern Israeli energy-export era.
Updated June 2026.
