Video Of The Week - Lebanese Journalist - Peace with Israel Is
Coming -https://tinyurl.com/y6o58zjo
By Stanley Reed, 9-10-2020 NY Times - https://nyti.ms/2Fk0q36
Chevron, the
American oil giant, wrapped up the acquisition on Monday of a relatively small
Houston-based company called
Noble Energy, paying about $4 billion.
Until recently, the
deal would have been unlikely, if not unthinkable — because what distinguishes Noble
is the large natural gas business it has built in the eastern Mediterranean
Sea, especially in Israel, an area that major oil companies had until now
avoided.Chevron’s move is the latest milestone in a remarkable shift in
perceptions about a relatively newregion for the petroleum industry in the
eastern Mediterranean. Once a dead sea for the oilindustry, this area, reaching
from the Nile Delta in Egypt up to Israel and Lebanon and around Cyprus, has
come alive with exploration vessels, drilling rigs and production platforms in
recentyears thanks to a series of large natural gas discoveries.
Those finds are
drawing major oil companies into the area, attracted not only by the prospect
of further undiscovered resources but by improving relations between Israel and
its former foes Egypt and Jordan.
International oil
giants previously steered clear of Israel, partly, to avoid alienating
large Arab oil producers like Saudi Arabia. The move by Chevron, which this
week edged ahead of Exxon Mobil to become America’s largest oil company by
market value, indicates that thedays when Persian Gulf states bristle about
business with Israel may be over. Recently, the UnitedArab Emirates and Bahrain
established relations with Israel with apparent Saudi blessing.
“It is opening up
the Israeli market to the world,” Nati Birenboim, a former Israeli energy
official said of Chevron’s arrival. “Everyone knows when they bought Noble,
they bought Israel.”More than 20 years ago, Noble came to Israel to hunt for
petroleum. It has produced major natural gas finds that turned
Israelcinto an exporter with long-term contracts worth an estimated $25
billion.
“I think what
Chevron sees is the opportunity” to buy into “massive natural gas resources
located in the center of a region with a lot of demand”
Along with the
drilling sites off the coast of Israel, a major discovery called the Zohr gas
field, found by the Italian energy company Eni in Egyptian waters in 2015, has
drawn development in the area.Total, the French oil firm, and Eni have even
extended the hunt into the sea off strife-torn Lebanon “It is a very attractive
region,” said Wayne Ackerman, a former adviser on gas to Saudi Aramco, who has
studied the area’s geology. “I am convinced there will be more discoveries
there.”
More
than 20 years ago, Noble helped put the region on the energy industry’s map.
Delek Drilling, an Israeli firm, brought the company to Israel to hunt for
petroleum. The partnership, which began in 1999, has produced major natural gas
finds that not only reduced Israel’s
dependence on imported
coal and oil but turned Israel — with some helpful nudging from American
diplomats — into an exporter with long-term contracts worth an estimated $25
billion to help power the neighboring economies of Jordan and Egypt.
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