Noble Energy Expects Leviathan, Tamar FID's Within a Year

Noble Energy will make final investment decisions (FIDs) concerning Leviathan and Tamar fields in around a year's time, David Stover, President and CEO of Noble Energy said on Monday. He made the announcement on a conference call following the release of Noble's third-quarter earnings.

In the third-quarter results, Noble recorded a net loss of $283 million compared with a profit of $419 million in the third quarter of 2014.

Mr. Stover said that marketing efforts in the Mediterranean are ongoing and mentioned Eni S.p.A's Zohr offshore Egypt discovery in a positive manner. "Regional customers remain under-supplied by almost 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day now, and we estimate that shortfall growing to 9 billion cubic feet per day by 2025," said Mr. Stover. "The proven reliability and performance at Tamar, along with the fully appraised and flow-tested Leviathan field, have us well positioned to supply gas to this under-supplied region."

Stover praised the new regulatory framework for the Israeli natural gas industry, and said that "it actually de-linked Tamar and Leviathan. So we're actually looking at those as two separate FIDs."

Mr. Stover also discussed Noble's contract to supply natural gas to Dolphinus Holdings, an Egyptian firm that represents non-government industrial and commercial consumers. He said that "actually could be the first project to come online at very little cost to us, but significant from the standpoint of establishing an export arrangement between Israel and neighboring countries."

Mr. Stover said that next year Noble's production will be probably flat though the "wildcard over there is if we can get this interruptible supply agreement [with Dolphinus Holdings] and actually start physically moving volumes from Israel to Egypt next year. We're not assuming anything for that at this point until it happens. But that could be a significant opportunity."

Ya'acov Zalel