Occupied Jerusalem – The Israeli government raced time to enhance the influence of the gas and energy sector and grant permits to global and local companies with the aim of expanding drilling and exploration in the gas fields in economic waters off the coasts it controls, amid expanding their greed for gas and oil in the eastern Mediterranean and placing the hand on the gas field “Gaza Marin” off Gaza.
The feverish and hidden race of the government comes to expand Israel’s influence in the gas and energy sector after it froze the “Al -Aqsa Flood” battle on October 7, 2023 projects and plans to expand Israeli gas fields that were in the targeting circle during the war on the Gaza and Lebanon fronts.
Amid the suspension of expansion and drilling plans in the gas fields, which are the “Levichan” field, the “Tamar” field and the “Karish” field, and even the irregularity of extracting and pumping gas from the fields and platforms due to its targeting during the war on Gaza, the government committee for the gas sector headed by the Director General of the Israeli Energy Ministry, Yossi Diane, intensified its deliberations regarding the policy of the Israeli gas sector.
During the deliberations of the joint ministerial committee, it reveals that the gas reserves in the fields off the Israeli economic waters will be distorted for two decades, and on this basis it was recommended in the document that it will submit to the government to give the green light to companies that oversee the “Levithan” field to develop it and expand exploration inside it.
The “Levaythan” field first
It supervises the development of the “Levichan” field: the Israeli company “New Meed Energy” and is active in the field of oil and gas exploration and owns about 45% of the field, and the company “Chevron”, a multinational American energy company operating in more than 180 countries in the world and owns about 40% of the rights of the “Leviathan” field.
Likewise, the Israeli company “Ricio Yahsh”, which owns 15% of the “Levichan” field, and has additional rights in the sea and on land, including gas and oil exploration permits inside Israel.
The partners in the “Leviathan” field recently presented an updated plan for the Israeli Ministry of Energy with the aim of increasing the volume of gas production from the field by two billion cubic meters annually, and raised it from a development plan of 21 billion cubic meters to 23 billion cubic meters annually.
This represents another 10% addition to the original plan for partners in the field (New Medi Energy, Richio and Chevron), as the investment cost is expected to reach about $ 2.4 billion.
In order to take the final investment decision in the “Levichan” field, the company hopes to obtain the necessary permits from the Israeli government to expand exports and sign contracts for more than 100 billion cubic meters, where it is expected that the partnership will soon complete another expansion project that increases the quantity to 14 billion cubic meters by 2026, so that the annual production capacity becomes 37 billion cubic meters.
Gas fields in Israel
Israel has 3 gas fields:
- The largest is the “Levichan” field, which is located in the eastern Mediterranean, and is about 130 km off the port of Haifa, and it is managed by the company “Chevron”, which is jointly owned by the company “New Meed Energy” and the company “Ricio Yahsh”, and the field began operating at the end of 2019, and produces 12 billion cubic meters of gas annually and the field currently issues about 90% of its gas to Egypt and Jordan and 10% sold For Israel.
- The second largest field is the “Tamar” field, which was discovered in 2009, and managed by Chevron, which is jointly owned by the company “Istramco”, “Tamar” Petroleum Company and Mubadala Petroleum Company. The field is located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Ashdod and Ashkalan.
- The third is the “Carrich” gas field that was developed in 2019, and it is a natural gas tank located in the eastern Mediterranean near the “Levichan” and Tamar fields, and the confirmed gas reserves in the field are estimated at 1.3 trillion cubic feet.
Gaza Marin
Last month, as the ceasefire agreement in Gaza entered into force, journalist Idan Benjamin, the energy affairs correspondent in the newspaper “Di Marker”, says that the joint ministerial committee to discuss the policy of the Israeli gas sector “held the final session on expanding the gas and energy sector in Israel in order to expand the excavation of existing fields and grant permits to local and international companies to explore for gas, with the aim of determining the future of energy in Israel.”
He explained that the government committee, during the multi -front war, has intensified the discussion of the gas economy policy in the Mediterranean, in order to determine the future of energy in Israel, as well as allow the continued export of gas to Jordan and Egypt, and the reason for this is that about 70% of electricity in Israel is produced using gas, which is the rate that is expected to rise in the coming years due to the stop use of coal.
Benjamin pointed out that the draft report of the Gas Sector Policy Studies report showed that Israel’s gas reserves are expected to run within two decades, and this means that the position of Israel “as an energy state in the Middle East is fragile and unstable and does not give it any superiority over the energy exporting countries in the region, and on this basis comes the green light for global and local companies to expand and develop gas fields, the first of which is the Levithan field.”
He suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to persuade the administration of US President Donald Trump to develop “Gaza Marin”, which falls within the Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza City, as well as the “Marin 2” field, which is within the maritime border area between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Expand the gas infrastructure
In front of these developments, transformations and estimates on Israel’s gas reserves, Israel’s consumption of natural gas in 2023 increased to 24.7 billion cubic meters, divided into 13.1 billion cubic meters for the local economy and 11.6 for exports, and what indicates that Israel has to be a journey to import gas after more than two decades if it does not discover additional fields or expand the fields discovered to fill the increase in needs and consumption.
The year 2024 witnessed an increase of 3.5% in local consumption and about 21% in exports, as the war on Gaza and Lebanon disrupted the third pipeline project to expand the infrastructure of the gas sector in Israel, according to the economic newspaper “Globes”.
In 2024, 11.1 billion cubic meters were produced from the “Levichan” field, compared to 9.1 billion cubic meters from the Tamar field, and 4.6 billion cubic meters from the “Carrich” field. The “Leviathan” field was the source of 78% of Israeli gas exports, while the rest comes from the “Tamar” field, because all the gas from the “Carich” field is directed to the local economy.
But due to the war, the American company “Chevron” decided to suspend the work in extending the maritime pipeline at the “Leviathan” gas field site, as well as the postponement of the completion of the third pipeline project, and the delay in the pipeline project is not expected to lead to a lack of gas in the local Israeli market, but rather to the decrease in the gas designated for export to Egypt and Jordan.
Israel’s exports of gas
In light of the great slowdown in the growth of the Israeli local gas market and the ongoing need for revenues, and in light of the start of the countdown to the global decline towards the gradual disposal of fossil fuels, the researcher in the field of energy and environmental sciences, Dr. Daniel Madra, says that “Israel is making with the energy companies invested in it efforts and monitoring huge budgets to increase gas exports from Israel before the gas becomes unimportant.”
A Master of a research study related to Israel’s aspiration in cooperation with American companies presented the expansion of the gas sector in Israel and the acquisition of more gas fields and exploration sites in the eastern Mediterranean, noting that Israel is looking to double its gas exports to the world.
The researcher in the field of energy and the environment in the research study, which reviewed what was reported in the newspaper “Yediot Aharonot”, indicated that, in order to increase its exports of gas, it expands the network of gas and energy infrastructure and developing it over 100 km to the land and linking gas platforms to the ports, as well as linking them to the network lines that reach Egypt and Jordan.
He pointed out that the partners in the “Levithan” field, which is the largest off the Israeli coast, seeks to expand exports more, at a time when the joint ministerial committee postpones the publication of the document that includes its recommendations to the government regarding the gas sector policy, where the deployment of the document was delayed due to the war, and it is estimated that the current amount of gas in Israeli economic fields will not last more than 20 years.
According to the committee’s estimates, the Israeli economy will need an additional 515 billion cubic meters by 2048, but the expected gas supplies for the Israeli economy reaches only 440 billion cubic meters, and the committee shall push the committee to encourage investments in the energy and gas sector in Israel, develop fields and increase gas production to the maximum degree.
And companies that acquire the gas fields in Israel estimate that reserves contain 1027 billion cubic meters, while the Israeli Ministry of Energy estimates that the reserve is only 850 billion cubic meters. This is a gap of 177 billion cubic meters, which is equivalent to 13 years of Israeli local consumption, as stated in the draft report.
