Damage to refineries in the second half of 2025, during the Swords of Iron war and Operation Rising Lion, together with maintenance work and technical malfunctions, reduced and at times halted LPG production at Israel’s two operating refineries, the State Comptroller found in an audit conducted from August to December 2025. The disruptions came in summer, when demand for LPG is relatively low, but the comptroller said a similar hit in winter could have caused a real shortage.
By the end of the audit, both refineries, Bazan in Haifa Bay and BAZA in Ashdod, were operating only partly and could not guarantee reliable supply. The Fuel Administration was not given written notice about BAZA’s expected supply capacity in June and July 2025 or about the maintenance work, so it was not prepared in advance.
The report says Israel has committed, under the Paris Agreement, government decisions, energy-policy documents and conclusions of a committee on reducing LPG use, to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 17% by 2030, improve energy efficiency and reduce LPG consumption. Yet the Energy Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Transportation Ministry are not prepared for lower LPG demand or for closing Bazan, neither in import infrastructure nor in storage.
The comptroller also found that domestic LPG sales are highly concentrated, controlled by four large suppliers, whose average prices per cubic meter in 2021 to 2024 were higher than those of smaller suppliers. The average price rose by as much as 7% between 2021 and 2024 across all suppliers, and price gaps of about 31% were found between nearby cities in the Tel Aviv area. The comptroller urged the Energy Ministry to take the steps needed to prepare the state for reduced LPG consumption and the shutdown of Bazan, and recommended that the Fuel Administration enforce the monthly written supply-forecast reporting requirement. It also suggested that the Competition Authority examine regional concentration in the LPG market, including areas dominated by a single major supplier.
