State-controlled Israel Electric Corp's coal consumption is expected to rise sharply next year as a result of a shortage of natural gas supplies, a senior IEC source said Monday.
The utility expects demand to reach 13.3 million mt in 2012, a record for the company.
The IEC consumed 12 million mt of coal in 2010 and the amount is expected to increase to 12.5 million in the current year. The supply mix would remain unchanged with about 50% of the coal coming from Colombia, 25-30% from South Africa and the remainder from Russia and other smaller suppliers.
The IEC has been rapidly switching over to gas following the huge discoveries off Israel's Mediterranean coast in recent years. However a cut-off of supplies from Egypt following a series of explosions has left the IEC without Egyptian gas for over 200 days so far this year.
The utility has increased the use of diesel and fuel oil as well as coal to offset the interruption of Egyptian supplies.
In 2010 Israel consumed 5.2 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 40% came from Egypt. The remainder is from the Yam Thetis consortium which supplies gas from the Mary B well off Israel's southern Mediterranean coast.
However in recent weeks production levels have fallen and this has forced the IEC to increase production at its four coal power plants at Hadera and Ashkelon as well as switch to diesel at several of its gas plants.
The utility expects that its efforts to switch over to gas will resume in full force in 2013 when production is due to begin at the huge Tamar offshore field.
The IEC official said that demand for coal in 2013 was likely to drop to 11-11.5 million mt once the Tamar field comes online and the IEC shuts down one of its Hadera plants to install flue gas desulfurization units.
Israeli coal demand could drop even further to around 9 million mt a year by 2016 once the IEC proceeds with plans to switch one of the older Hadera plants to gas from coal.
