French oil giant Total says it will soon launch exploration activities in search for gas in the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon’s coast, following last month’s Lebanon-Israel maritime deal.

 
French oil giant Total said Tuesday it would soon launch exploration activities in search for gas in the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon’s coast, following last month’s Lebanon-Israel deal on their maritime border.

 
According to a statement, TotalEnergies and its partner, Italy’s ENI, signed with Israel a so-called “Framework Agreement” to implement the U.S.-mediated border agreement reached last month. Lebanon and Israel have been formally at war since Israel’s creation in 1948.

 
The border deal envisages that the disputed waters would be divided along a line straddling the “Qana” natural gas field in the Mediterranean. Total said gas production would be based on the Lebanese side, in the so-called Block 9, but Israel would be compensated for gas extracted from its side of the line, under a separately signed deal between Total and Israel.

 
The company’s statement said TotalEnergies would have 60% stake in the operation and ENI the rest.

 
“TotalEnergies, as the operator of block 9, is proud to be associated with the peaceful definition of a maritime border between Israel and Lebanon,” said TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné.

 
“By bringing our expertise in offshore exploration, we will respond to the request of both countries to assess the materiality of hydrocarbon resources and production potential in this area,” Pouyanné added.

 
The exploration was expected to start next year. Cash-strapped Lebanon hopes that future gas discoveries will help the small Mideast nation pull itself out of the worst economic and financial crisis in the country’s modern history.

 
Lebanese officials have said the maritime border agreement does not represent any form of normalization of relations between the two countries.

 
Lebanon approved licenses in 2017 for an international consortium including Total, ENI and Russia’s Novatek to move forward with offshore oil and gas development for two of the 10 blocks in the Mediterranean.

 
Novatek recently withdrew and Lebanese officials, including Energy Minister Walid Fayad, have said that Qatar is interested in filling that gap.

 
Lebanon has since reached out to Syria and Cyprus to start direct negotiations over its northern and western maritime border with them as well.


On the other side, Oil and Gas Group Energean calls for East Mediterranean investment boom.

 
The chief executive of a London-listed oil and gas company has called for more investment in the energy potential of the eastern Mediterranean after a landmark maritime deal between Lebanon and Israel.

 
Mathios Rigas, whose Energean delivered the first gas from Israel’s Karish field last month, said the US-brokered agreement, following years of on-off negotiations between the sworn enemies, offered a “new model” for the resolution of border disputes in the contested region.

 
The deal does not constitute a peace agreement between the two countries, which still do not recognise each other’s governments, but allows for the exploitation of the area’s hydrocarbons while border negotiations continue.

 
“[It] presents a new model of how countries that are in dispute can find a way . . . to allow economic development, economic interests, without solving everything,” Rigas told the Financial Times.

 
“Most importantly, our deal allows Lebanon to develop its own resources,” said Rigas, who wants to see gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean developed first for local markets. “Before we start to talk about exports of gas from the east Med to Europe, we have to think how we’re going to supply the region that needs this resource.”

 
The east Mediterranean, including Israel, Egypt and Jordan, already consumes as much as 100bn cubic metres a year of gas, equivalent to Germany, and is growing, he said.

 
However, in Europe, pressure to reduce dependence on Russian energy has revived interest in a long-discussed €6bn eastern Mediterranean pipeline to bring gas from Israel, Egypt and future discoveries into the EU.

 
“If you’re asking me if, financially, the project works today, maybe it’s challenging,” Rigas said. “But then I’ll turn the question around: what is the price of being independent from Russia?”