Sunday, October 09, 2022

PETRO POLITICS
Energy Firm Starts Tests at Sensitive Israel-Lebanon Border Gas Field

October 09, 2022 
Agence France-Presse
This handout picture released by Energean oil and gas company on Sept. 20, 2022 shows an Energean Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) ship in the Karish field, an offshore gas field in the Mediterranean sea which is claimed by Israel and partly by Lebanon.

JERUSALEM —

London-listed firm Energean on Sunday began testing pipes between Israel and the Karish offshore gas field, a key step towards production from the eastern Mediterranean site, a source of friction between neighbors Israel and Lebanon.

Israel has maintained that Karish falls entirely within its territory and is not a subject of negotiation at ongoing, U.S.-mediated maritime border talks with Lebanon. The two countries remain technically at war.

Lebanon has reportedly made claims to parts of Karish and the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah, which holds huge influence in Lebanon, has previously threatened attacks if Israel began production from the field.

In a statement Sunday, Energean said that "following approval received from the Israeli Ministry of Energy to start certain testing procedures, the flow of gas from onshore to the FPSO has commenced," referring to the Karish floating production storage offloading facility.

The tests, set to take a number of weeks, were "an important step" towards extracting gas from the Karish, Energean said.

Lebanon and Israel have engaged in on-off indirect talks since 2020 to delineate their Mediterranean border, which could allow both countries to boost offshore natural gas exploration.

A draft agreement floated by U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein aims to settle competing claims over offshore gas fields and was delivered to Lebanese and Israeli officials in recent days.

Israel had welcomed the terms set out by Hochstein and said they would be subjected to legal review but gave no indication it sought substantive changes.

Lebanon presented its response to Washington's proposal on Tuesday.

Israel said two days later that it planned to reject Beirut's proposed amendment, even if that jeopardizes a possible agreement.

Israel reiterated this week that production at Karish would begin as soon as possible, regardless of Lebanon's demands.

On Saturday, the French foreign ministry said Paris was "actively contributing to the American mediation."

Under the terms of the U.S. draft agreement leaked to the press, all of Karish would fall under Israeli control, while Qana, another potential gas field, would be divided but its exploitation would be under Lebanon's control.

French company Total would be licensed to search for gas in the Qana field, and Israel would receive a share of future revenue.

Greece and Egypt call Turkish-Libyan gas deal 'illegal'

Sun, October 9, 2022 


Egypt and Greece on Sunday said a deal allowing Turkish hydrocarbon exploration in Libya's Mediterranean waters was "illegal" as Athens said it would oppose it by all "legal means".

On Monday, Turkey said it had signed a memorandum of understanding on exploration for hydrocarbons in Libya's seas with the authorities in Tripoli.

"This agreement threatens stability and security in the Mediterranean," Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said in Cairo, where he met his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry.

The deal follows an agreement Turkey signed three years ago with Tripoli that demarcated the countries' shared maritime borders.


Greece, Egypt and Cyprus believe the 2019 agreement violates their economic rights in an area suspected to contain vast natural gas reserves.

"We will use all legal means to defend our rights," Dendias added.

He said Tripoli "does not have the necessary sovereignty over this area", and that the agreement is therefore "illegal and inadmissible".

Shoukry charged that the mandate of the authorities in Tripoli has "expired" and that "the government of Tripoli does not have the legitimacy to sign agreements".



A rival Libyan administration in the war-torn country's east -- which since March has been attempting to take office in Tripoli and also argues the government's mandate has expired -- has rejected the accord.

Monday's deal builds on an agreement signed between Ankara and a previous Tripoli-based administration in 2019, at the height of a battle for the capital after eastern-based military chief Khalifa Haftar attempted to seize it by force.

The delivery of Turkish drones to Tripoli-based forces shortly afterwards was seen as crucial in the victory over Haftar, who was backed at the time by Egypt, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

The question of rights to Libya's vast hydrocarbon resources has become more urgent this year as global energy prices have soared.

The European Union has denounced the 2019 maritime border deal, while France has said the recent agreement was "not in accordance with international law".

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