Floating gas production rig/ Photo courtesy Energean
Energean, the British energy company that operates Israeli natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea, just won a big court victory in Israel. Israel’s Supreme Court that Energean has complete rights to Israel’s North Karish offshore natural gas field in the Mediterranean.
The court was forced to step in after Chevron and Israel’s Delek Group unit NewMed Energy filed claims for drilling rights in the field. Chevron and Delek both held some form of rights to drill in the area under dispute but never did so. Israel’s High Court of Justice, in a first of its kind ruling, found in favor of Energean based on the premise that since the other firms had not conducted their own work at the site they basically forfeited their rights.
In short, they could not just sit back and wait for Energean to do all the work and expense proving what, if any, gas was down there before going to work themselves.
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Chevron and NewMed Energy not only lost their claims to any of the resources found in the location in question, but they were also ordered to pay NIS 60,000 ($16,500) to the court for costs and NIS 40,000 ($11,000) to Energean for legal fees.
It was just this past February when, for the first time in its history, Israel began exporting hydrocarbon liquids in the form of crude oil. The fuel was extracted from Israel’s Karish offshore gas field in the Mediterranean by Energean.
And last May, Energean, which specializes on the Eastern Mediterranean, revealed the discovery of 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas between its Karish and Tanin fields in its Athena exploration well off the coast of Israel.
Israel’s natural gas fields like Karish have enough gas to not only satisfy the country’s needs for the foreseeable future – until renewable sources of energy like solar power replace fossil fuels entirely – but to also supply neighboring countries like Egypt as well. However, the Lebanese government continues to make problems over the field’s ownership.
Energean announced a new gas discovery in Karish North on April 15, 2019. As per a Competent Persons Report by DeGolyer and MacNaughton (November 2020), Karish North contains gross 1,137 bcf gas 2P reserves plus 34.1 mmbls liquids 2P reserves. The company says that this represents a total of 240.7 million barrels of oil equivalent, of which 84% is gas.
Karish North FDP was approved by the Israeli authorities in August 2020. Karish North Final Investment Decision (FID) was made in January 2021 with first gas expected in 2H 2023.
