Israel's Leviathan partners bring forward drill plans
Chevron and the other companies developing the Leviathan gas field off Israel have decided to bring forward plans to drill a fifth well in response to strong gas demand this year, project partner Delek said in a stock filing on July 13.
The Leviathan-8 well will be drilled at lease 1/15 in the Leviathan North area in 2022 at a cost of $248mn. Earlier the well was expected to be spudded in a later year. Drilling should take four months, and will be undertaken by the Stena Forth drill ship. The water depth at the site is 1,620 m and the well will be completed to a depth of 5,300 m below the seabed.
Chevron operates Leviathan with a 39.7% interest, while Delek has 45.3% and fellow Israeli firm Ratio Oil 15%. The field was brought on stream in December 2019 and is projected to deliver 10bn m3 of gas in 2021, Delek said in March, up from an earlier estimate of 8.9bn m3. Delek expects revenues from the field to gross $1.7bn in 2021.
The company said back in March that "the continuing increase and stabilisation in the actual amount of gas exports to Egypt, alongside the rise in demand on the domestic market, have led to a revision upwards in the forecast for sales and production from the Leviathan reservoir, which has already become a major energy anchor in the sector."
He also noted that "the continued development of the reservoir, expansion of the pipeline and increasing export capabilities will allow us to promote more export contracts."
In addition to Israel, Leviathan also supplies gas to Egypt and Jordan. The Israeli and Egyptian governments, together with the Leviathan consortium, have discussed supplying the field's gas to Egypt's LNG plants for re-export, although doing so would require infrastructure expansion.