Leviathan, the nation’s largest natural gas field, will start production for the local market this month and exports to Egypt and Jordan soon after, a senior official at the field’s operator said at a Monday conference.
“Within two to three weeks we will open the wells and start to supply the gas,” said Binyamin Zomer, VP for Regional Affairs at Noble Energy, the US oil and gas explorer that operates and holds a 40 percent stake in the field. “Before the end of the year we will start supplying the domestic market, and in the weeks right after that we will export to Egypt and Jordan.”
The start of production, some nine years after the field was discovered offshore in 2010, will lead the country to energy independence and is considered a milestone in its economic history. The project, the largest funded by private capital in the nation’s history, will pave the way for Israel to become an exporter of natural gas and is seen to help grease the wheels of regional diplomacy.
The Monday announcement is in line with forecasts by Noble and its partners in the field, Delek Drilling LP, a unit of Delek Group, and Ratio Oil Exploration 1992. READ MORE
