The existence of a narrow land bridge between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea led to a decision in the middle of the last century to lay a pipeline through southern Israel and, combined with storage terminals, to serve the transit of crude oil from oil producing sources in the Persian Gulf to customers in Europe.

The Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co. Ltd. was established in 1968 as the successor to companies that had transported oil over the same land bridge in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

The company operated successfully in times of dynamic changes in the domestic and global oil markets, and in times of political upheaval. After the expiry of a concession which had been given to the company to build and operate the oil facilities, the activity was transferred to a new company established for this purpose, Europe Asia Pipeline Company Ltd. (“EAPC”).

The crude oil pipeline system of EAPC consists of three pipelines. The largest of them is a 42″ diameter pipeline 254 km long linking the Eilat oil port on the Red Sea coast with the Ashkelon oil port on the Mediterranean coast. Two additional pipelines supply the refineries in Haifa and Ashdod, respectively. The company operates two oil ports and two oil terminals with a storage capacity of 3.7 million cubic meters for crude oil and petroleum products.