Maritime dispute with Lebanon threatens Israeli natural gas drilling
Israel hopes that a solution can be found to the maritime border dispute with Lebanon so Energean can start drilling in the Karish field in the third quarter of 2022.
After five weeks of traveling at sea, the natural gas platform Karish FPSO arrived June 5 at its designated location, off the shores of Israel. Shortly after its arrival, operation teams began connecting the rig to the gas wells and piping networks. The floating platform should serve for production, storage and offloading of drilled natural gas. Energean said the new rig will start operating by September. The new rig was commissioned by the Greek Energean firm, which holds gas production licenses for Israeli Karish and Tanin reservoirs.
Energean CEO Mathios Rigas said after the arrival of the rig, "This marks a major step forward in delivering first gas from Karish. … We look forward to continuing our progress through Karish first gas, the commercialization of the newly defined Olympus Area and contributing to energy security and competition of supply for the region."
