The U.S. Export Import Bank announced today that It is providing up to $100 million for a pipeline through Egypt that will be owned and operated by Arab countries which are now engaged in an oil embargo against the United States. The announcement of the loan was seen as an inducement by the U.S. government to those countries especially Egypt, toward easing the way toward negotiations with Israel for a peace settlement and to help resume the flow of oil to the U.S. from that area.
The announcement said that the pipeline projects will incur sales of up to $200 million in U.S. goods and services for the project which will consist of two 200-mile long 42-inch diameter crude oil pipelines, pumping stations, storage facilities and marine terminals from the Gulf of Suez to a point near Alexandria on the Mediterranean it will parallel the Suez Canal.
These oil lines, which will cost a total of $345 million and will have an annual capacity of 80 million metric tons of oil, will be owned and operated by the Suez Mediterranean Petroleum Pipeline Corp. of Cairo (Sumed). Half of it will be owned by the Egyptian government and the other half by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait Abu Dhabi and Qatar. The Bechtel Corp. of San Francisco will have primary responsibility for its design and construction. it is expected to be completed in June 1974 and used by nine international oil companies largely American, who have signed commitments to ship through this pipeline.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
