The Lebanese Council of Ministers has issued the results of the country's first licensing round and has approved awarding two offshore petroleum licenses for exploration and production to a consortium comprising Total, Eni and Novatek. The consortium now has one month to prepare technical and legal paperwork before signing production-sharing agreements (PSAs) in January 2018. The exploration will last up to five years with a possible one-year extension and the first exploratory drilling could take place as early as 2019.
The awarded licenses are Block 4 and Block 9, which lies in an area contested by Israel. Both belong to the Levant Basin (Eastern Mediterranean sea) where a significant number of large subsea gas fields have been discovered since 2009, of which the Tamar and Leviathan fields in Israeli waters.
The first oil and gas licensing round, including five offshore blocks (blocks 1, 4, 8, 9 and 10), was initially expected in early 2014 but was postponed due to political troubles. It was relaunched after a three-year delay in January 2017.
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