Israel's biggest natural gas field, Leviathan, is set to begin gas supply to the local market within three weeks and start exports to Egypt and Jordan shortly after that, in a major milestone for the energy landscape in Israel and the Eastern Mediterranean.
"Within two to three weeks we will open the wells and start to supply the gas," Binyamin Zomer, VP for Regional Affairs at Leviathan's operator, U.S. Noble Energy, said at a conference on Monday, as carried by The Times of Israel.
According to Noble Energy's executive, Leviathan will begin gas supply to the Israeli market by the end of this year, while exports to Egypt and Jordan will start early in 2020.
In its Q3 results release in early November, Noble Energy said that the Leviathan project was 96 percent complete and first gas was expected in December, with delivery of the Leviathan project ahead of schedule and below budget.
Leviathan-discovered in 2010-together with other fields discovered offshore Israel in the past decade such as Tamar, Karish, and Tanin, is expected to help Israel become energy independent.
Israel is set to soon begin natural gas exports to Egypt. The two countries, which mark this year 40 years since signing a peace treaty in 1979, have made meaningful advances in their natural gas industries in recent years and are competing to become Eastern Mediterranean's next energy hub.
The deal under which Israel will export natural gas to Egypt has been described by Israeli officials as one of the most important bilateral agreements since the two countries made peace 40 years ago.
At the beginning of last year, Israel's Delek Group and Houston-based Noble Energy-the main partners in the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields offshore Israel-signed agreements to sell significant quantities of natural gas from the two fields to Dolphinus Holdings to supply gas in Egypt.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More