Lebanon launched on Friday 26 of October its second offshore oil and gas licensing round for all eight remaining blocks, the Lebanese Petroleum Administration said on its website.
The deadline for the submission of bids is June 15, 2022.
Mainly after two years of delay, Lebanon is in dire need of proceeds from the oil and gas sector as the country has been suffering from an unprecedented financial crisis.
Lebanon’s explorational activity for gas in the Eastern Mediterranean has proceeded in fits and starts since the mid-2000s. The first offshore licensing round was launched in 2013, but it was only in February 2020 that the first drilling operations in Lebanese waters began, entrusted to an international consortium comprising Total, Eni and Novatek.
Lebanon initially approved its second round in April 2019 that only covered two blocs but later postponed the bidding after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek completed exploratory drilling in Lebanon’s offshore Bloc 4 but did not find a commercially viable amount of hydrocarbons. Meanwhile, drilling in Bloc 9 was postponed.
Block 4 and Block 9 are what the first licensing round tried to explore.
Amid the deep financial, political and infrastructural crisis that Lebanon is facing, gas discoveries could represent a means to revive the economy, boost employment, sustain the crippled national energy sector and limit Lebanon’s dependence on foreign energy imports.
