Bloomberg reports: Partners in Israel’s Leviathan field, the country’s largest natural gas reservoir, signed an export agreement with Natural Electric Power Co. of Jordan. Tel Aviv gas stocks rose.
The partners, including Noble Energy Inc. and Delek Drilling-LP, will supply a gross 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from the Leviathan field over a 15-year period, Noble said in a statement. Gross contract revenue is estimated to be about $10 billion.
The deal “positions the Leviathan project in the center of the regional energy map,” Yossi Abu, chief executive officer of Delek Drilling, said in a separate statement e-mailed on Monday. “Partners in the Leviathan project will continue to pursue long-term agreements with other customers in the eastern Mediterranean, including in Egypt, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority.”
The accord follows a previously-announced deal with Jordan Bromine Co. and the Arab Potash Co., which will establish the first gas exports to Jordan from the Tamar field, the country’s second-biggest site, in late 2016.
The Leviathan gas partners are seeking multi-billion dollar contracts for exports after the last of the regulatory, legal and political challenges that held up gas development for years was swept away in mid-May. The site was discovered in 2010 in the Mediterranean Sea off Israel’s coast, and the first exports are targeted by 2019.
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