MEOG: Gaza nears deal for offshore exploration

Following the recent maritime delimitation agreement between Israel and Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority (PA) appears close to an upstream development deal offshore the Gaza Strip.

Egypt’s Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Tarek El-Molla held talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammed Shtayyeh and Israeli representatives to pursue the development of the Gaza Marine gas field.

The trigger for the renewed interest in the asset seems to be European interest in diversifying its natural gas supplies away from Russian sources, which gave impetus to the signing of the trilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the EU, Israel and Egypt earlier this year to jointly develop offshore assets in the Eastern Mediterranean, with this co-operation having now expanded to Gaza.

The UK-based BG Group was awarded a 25-year contract for the Gaza Marine licence in 1999 and discovered the asset the following year with reserves estimated at around 1 trillion cubic feet (28bn cubic metres) around 36 km offshore. At the time, this represented a major discovery for the Eastern Mediterranean, but has since been dwarfed by the likes of Israel’s giant Leviathan and Tamar fields and Egypt’s Zohr.

The find was never developed as relations between the PA and Tel Aviv worsened and as tentative plans for the field to supply gas to Israel were abandoned.