Energean strikes commercial gas off Israel
Energean has made a commercial gas discovery at the Hermes well it drilled off the coast of Israel in lock 31, the company said on October 6, with preliminary estimates placing its size at 7-15bn m3 of recoverable resources.
Detailed analysis is ongoing to refine volume estimates and the potential for commercial development, at both the discovery and the wider area, Energean said. The company noted that the find had helped de-risk the nearby Poseidon and Orpheus structures, also in block 31.
The Hermes find comes less than five months after Energean also struck gas at the Athena well at block 12 in the Olympus area. As part of its ongoing drilling campaign off Israel, the Stena IceMax rig Energean used to drill Hermes has moved on to block 12 to drill the Zeus structure, assessed to hold 10-12bn m3 of gross prospective unrisked gas resources. The company is gathering additional data to refine resource estimates for the entire Olympus area, currently estimated to contain 58bn m3 in unrisked recoverable resources.
Energean has also exercised an option to drill a sixth well using the Stena rig, and this is expected to be spudded at the Hercules prospect at block 23.
Israel represents the company's main focus, where it operates the large but as-yet unproducing Karish, Karish North and Tanish gas fields as well as additional exploration acreage. A floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel arrived at the Karish site in June, and at that time, Energean said it expected first gas from the field in the third quarter. However, as yet it has not announced the field's commercial launch.