MEOG: Israel and Lebanon agree maritime border deal

Israel and Lebanon this week agreed a deal that resolves their long-running dispute around the demarcation of their shared maritime border despite technically remaining at war with each other.

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun announced that the talks had come to “a positive end”, calling the agreement an “historic achievement”. The deal sees Beirut regain an 860 square km offshore area.

The new border will run, for the most part, along the Line 23 demarcation, south of the Hof Line, named after the proposed by US envoy Frederic Hof in 2012.

During negotiations, Lebanon pushed hard for the Line 29 to be adopted, though this was never likely to be acceptable, particularly as it would have posed major challenges to the development of the Karish gas field, where London-listed Energean recently hooked up a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit.

Meanwhile, the deal sees Israel retain full control over Karish, and Lebanon keep ownership of the Qana deposit.