Woodside and the Leviathan Joint Venture participants - Noble Energy, Delek, Avner Oil and Ratio Oil - have concluded a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), following their previous in-principle agreement for the potential acquisition of an interest in the Leviathan gas field offshore Israel. The MoU provides a framework to negotiate the acquisition of a 25% participating interest in each of the 349/Rachel and 350/Amit petroleum licences. The parties will negotiate towards executing a fully termed agreement by 27 March 2014.
The Leviathan field is contained within the licences, and based on information provided by the operator Noble Energy, has an estimated ‘2C’ contingent resource (100%) of 18.9 Tcf (535 bcm) of natural gas and 34.1 mbl of condensate.
Consistent with the previous in-principle agreement, Woodside would be the operator of any LNG development of the field, while Noble Energy would remain upstream operator. Woodside will pay US$850m upon completion of the transaction under a fully termed agreement and US$350m on a Final Investment Decision for an LNG development or payments of up to US$350m on predetermined export project milestones.
The transaction contemplated by the MoU is conditional upon the execution of a fully termed agreement and certain policy, tax and regulatory approvals from the Israeli Government.