Woodside has decided to terminate the memorandum of understanding agreed in February 2014 with the participants in the Leviathan Joint Venture, which opened the way for Woodside to acquire a 25% stake in the joint venture. Woodside had been in discussions with Noble Energy Mediterranean Ltd, Delek Drilling LP, Avner Oil Exploration LP and Ratio Oil Exploration to acquire a 25% participating interest in each of the 349/Rachel and 350/Amit petroleum licences located offshore in Israeli waters. In late March 2014 negotiations between the parties failed to reach a commercially acceptable outcome that would have allowed fully-termed agreements to be executed.
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.