Photo Credit: Moshe Shai / Flash 90
An aeriel view of the Israeli 'Tamar' gas processing rig 24 km off the Israeli southern coast of Ashkelon. Noble Energy and Delek Group are the main partners in the Tamar gas field, estimated to contain 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. June 23, 2014.

Israel’s Accountant-General of the Ministry of Finance delivered good news to the government on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a tremendously satisfied video message to Israelis.

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According to the Accountant-General’s calculations, Israel will receive NIS 22 billion ($17 billion) in royalty income to the state in the coming decades.

The income is expected as a result of the sale of the natural gas from the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields by 2041 and 2065 respectively. The assumption in the calculations is that all of the gas from the Tamar reservoir and more than half of that in Leviathan would be sold.

Noble Energy and Delek Group are the main partners in the Tamar gas field, estimated to contain at least 10 trillion cubic feet of gas.

“That’s … [money] that can go to education, to health, to the elderly, to Holocaust survivors,” Netanyahu said. “All this would of course have remained under the sea if various opponents were successful,” he said. “But they failed. We made sure they would not succeed, because we care about Israel and Israeli citizens.”

The figures are based on an estimate that all 251 BCM of the gas in the Tamar field would be sold (not including Tamar SW) by 2041, according to Globes. The estimate also includes an assumption that 354 BCM of gas from Leviathan – more than half of the gas likely to be in the field – would be sold between 2020 and 2065. In addition, the estimate includes an assumption of approximately NIS 3.3 billion from taxes on sand and gravel quarries and NIS 1.3 billion from sales of potash and natural phosphates quarried at the Dead Sea.

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Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.