Offshore staff
TEL AVIV, Israel – The Israeli Energy Ministry has opened the country’s latest bid round for exploration and production of natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
According to Energy Minister Dr Yuval Steinitz, the government’s goals are to attract new activity to sustain development ofIsrael’s natural gas market, increase competition through the admission of new international energy companies to E&P in the sector, and to broaden the country’s energy security.
These initiatives are also connected to a planned new subsea gas export pipeline between Israel and southeast Europe.
Under the new round, 19 blocks will be offered in five zones off southern Israel where there has been previous seismic survey activity, but only limited exploration. Each block is up to 400 sq km (154 sq mi) and each zone, comprising multiple blocks, could cover an area of up to 1,600 sq km (618 sq mi).
The decision to market the blocks in zones should allow better correlation between the exploration areas and subsurface geological structures that potentially contain oil and gas reservoirs, the Ministry added.
This should make the round more attractive to investors as being able to hold larger interests should encourage more efficient subsurface evaluation.
Exploration licenses will be granted for an initial three-year period, after which licensees can request a further two-year extension, provided that they submit a work plan that includes drilling in at least one of the licenses in the zone.
They will also need to submit an additional work plan for approval by the petroleum commissioner.
After drilling and completion of all work plans, the license term can be extended to a maximum of seven years, pending further drilling commitments.
A maximum of eight licenses can be awarded to any one party. In addition, any licensee holding more than 20% of a producing Israeli oil lease will not be able to participate in the current bid round; and a group that does not hold current licenses will be given preference, in order to increase the diversity of Israeli license holders.
An associated data package will be available for purchase on the Israeli Energy Ministry’s website.
Bids must be received by June, with the winners to be announced the following month.
11/06/2018
