Huge natural gas field discovered in Lebanese waters

Lebanon’s Energy Minister has announced the discovery of a huge natural gas field in his country’s territorial waters. Gebran Bassil said that the field contains an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Around 70 per cent of Lebanese waters have been surveyed by British company Spectrum using 3-D technology and the find was made in just 10 per cent. Last month, Lebanon launched the first round of the approval process for 46 international energy companies bidding for oil and gas exploration licences. The deadline for companies to submit bids is October, with contracts to be signed by February 2014.

Mr Bassil predicted that Lebanon will start producing gas in 2020, noting that the quantity discovered is commercially very big assessed at the current value.

The New Ventures Manager at Spectrum, Neil Hodgson, said he believed that one southern part of around 3,000 square km of the undersea area surveyed holds between 17 and 50 trillion cubic feet of gas. Total deep-water reserves could be up to 80 trillion cubic feet, he noted.

“In the northern area, if we get the same sort of result, we should see another 20 or 30 trillion cubic feet of gas,” he added.