Leviathan partners set the ball rolling for Israeli floating LNG terminal

February 21, 2023, by Ajsa Habibic

Partners in the Leviathan gas field offshore Israel have approved budgets for 2023 which include nearly $100 million for the expansion of the existing infrastructure and preparation of the future floating LNG terminal.

Said to be the largest energy project in Israel’s history, the deep-sea field started supplying gas to Israel, Egypt and Jordan at the end of 2019.

The rights holders in the Leviathan project are NewMed Energy (with a working interest of 45.3%), Chevron (which was called “Noble Energy” at the time, with a working interest of 39.7%) and Ratio Energies (with a working interest of 15%).

On 21 February, the partners announced their decision to spend $51.5 million on the preparation of the floating LNG facility, with an annual production capacity of approximately 4.6 million tons of LNG.

The remaining $44.9 million will be dedicated to the performance of front-end engineering and design (FEED) for Phase 1B for the development of the Leviathan reservoir, with the aim of increasing the total gas production capacity by an additional 9 bcm per year, i.e. to the sum total of approximately 21 bcm per year.

The expansion of the Leviathan reservoir’s production system will include the design of subsea infrastructures and necessary changes on the production platform, NewMed explained.

The expansion and the future floating LNG facility are also necessary for the possible LNG deliveries from the Leviathan reservoir to Germany under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) which was signed last year by NewMed and Uniper.