Iran, Israel fight over EAPC

In a Swiss court, Iranian and Israeli lawyers are locked in arbitration over the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co. (EAPC), a joint venture set up in 1968, when the two nations were friendly, to transport Iranian oil to the Mediterranean.

For a decade, the pipeline successfully carried oil from the Red Sea for export to Europe. But since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been demanding its share of revenues and assets that remained in Israel.

Since the partnership collapsed, EAPC has grown into a complex of energy assets, now mostly handling oil from former Soviet states.

Tehran is determined to recoup its part of EAPC and has been pursuing a complex arbitration case since 1994, first in France and now in Switzerland. In that time, the company has become the largest distributor of oil in Israel, with ambitions to become a major hub for energy trading in the Mediterranean. Israel maintains tight controls over EAPC.

Last December, some 600 000 gallons of crude oil leaked from a breached pipeline in southern Israel in what officials said was one of the worst environmental disasters in the country's history.

The spill in the Eilat region was caused by "the systematic failure" of construction workers who were upgrading the pipeline, according to Guy Samet, southern chief of the country's Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Edited from various sources by Elizabeth Corner

Sources: NBC News, Business Insider

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/04032015/iran-israel-fight-over-eapc/