Oil from a previously unexploited field in Egypt’s Gulf of Suez is now flowing, BP announced on Tuesday. BP has commenced oil extraction from a dormant field in the Gulf of Suez, Bikya Masr reports. Plans to exploit oil from the NS377 field had been delayed, but it is now being piped by BP’s field […]
This coral reef in Egypt is threatened by a new oil slick, according to local reports. Ecologists have discovered a new 300 meter oil slick in the Red Sea just outside of El-Tor, according to WReporter. Quoting Youm 7, the paper claims that the spill threatens coral reefs in the Ras Muhammad National Park Marine […]
Get your weekly dose of green news snippets from the region It’s been another great week of green news coming from the Middle East. We hope you managed to catch our interview with Green Hajj expert Dr Husna Ahmed, our coverage of the quake-proof straw houses as well as Tafline’s time at the Desertec conference […]
Who needs terrorism when we’ve got oil spills? “The Mega Leisure Destination on the Red Sea” has sprung an oily leak so serious that the Egyptian authorities have declared a state of emergency, according to Almasry Alyoum. General Petroleum Corporation reported that one of their wells is leaking in three Gamsha spots north of Hurghada […]
Concerted cleaning efforts averted major disaster in Eilat, but more serious oil spills are only “a matter of time” say Israeli officials. Two separate oil spills contaminated the waters off Eilat in Israel over the weekend. The Jerusalem Post reports that the initial oil spill on Friday morning came from an unknown source, although officials […]
We have 50 years to get unhooked. Is it too late? A senior economist at HSBC claimed in a recent report that the world’s oil resources are only expected to last five more decades, according to the New York Times. An earlier report from Wikileaks that Saudi Arabia’s peak oil is expected to happen much […]
This image is of a former oil spill in Lebanon Despite the best-laid laws, lack of enforcement is a leading cause of preventable environmental hazards in the Middle East. Egypt regularly has oil spills in the Nile and the Red Sea because of lax regulations. This week’s kerosene spill off Lebanon’s eastern Mediterranean (already an […]
Bahrain intends to save its portion of the Gulf before the ship sinks by staging and practicing its response to a major oil spill. In an alarming testament to the bizarre times in which we live, Bahrain is planning a new kind of drill. As small children we listened eagerly for the sound of the […]
“Spill and run” on the Nile could lead to legal action. Only a few days ago we described the Egyptian government’s failure to enforce better maintenance and safety standards for various vessels that travel along the Nile. As a result, untreated waste is routinely dumped in the river, as well as other pollutants such as […]
If Ramadan and Yom Kippur have given you a taste for fasting, why not try the latest eco friendly fast: the oil fast. Fasting is a natural, religious and spiritual affair which is practised by many people all over the world. Muslims give up food and drink between sunrise and sunset for an entire month […]
Will the Nile River diesel spill bolster lower nations’ claims to the river? Who has rights to the Nile’s sometimes polluted water is under dispute, catering as it does to numerous nations up and down its long and winding length. Egypt has kept control, but other African nations are beginning to stand up to claim […]
Israel-China, foreign investment in Israel, oil munching bacteria and more headlines related to Israeli cleantech and the environment. Image by Or Hiltch. During the week of July 25, 2010, Israel’s first tidal power plant was completed in Jaffa. An Israeli-Palestinian team has received a grant to address clean water issues in Israel and the Middle […]
Proven bacterial technology can clean up the oil that BP’s cleaning crew leaves behind Prof. Eugene Rosenberg and Prof. Eliora Ron of Tel Aviv University are using naturally occurring oil-munching bacteria, grown in the lab, to clean the hard-to-reach oil pockets that occur when oil mixes with sand and organic matter on beaches and forms a thin […]
With BP’s leaky well in the Gulf of Mexico barely capped and Tony Hayward ousted, Libya will allow BP to commence drilling deep off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea [image via arenamontanus] While the BP oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico drew worldwide consternation, inspiring an ardent campaign to quit our dependence on […]
Is the Mediterranean Sea fated to end up like the Gulf of Mexico? Like a giant herd of marauding elephants pounding through the forest, BP destroys everything in its wake. Despite the international outcry against one of the world’s worst human-induced environmental disasters, the Deepwater Horizon spill that leaked 92 million barrels of oil into […]