Greece's Energean snaps up four new Israeli offshore licenses

Israel-focused Greek oil and gas group Energean was awarded four new Israeli offshore licenses in the so-called Exclusive Economic Zone, the company said on Wednesday.

“Energean has identified a prospect within Zone D analogous to the prolific Tamar Sand fields (Karish, Tamar, Leviathan etc) offshore Israel,” Energean said, referring to existing discoveries.

Energean had bid for the licenses with Israeli Opportunity which holds 20% in them.

Earlier this month, Energean agreed to buy the oil and gas division of Italian energy company Edison for up to $850 million.

The other consortium to have bid for the Israeli offshore licenses was made up of Cairn Energy, SOCO International and Israel’s Ratio Oil.

In April the Greek energy firm made a vast discovery of 28-42 billion cubic meters of natural gas at the North Karish field off Israel’s northwest coast, the company said on Monday.The discovery is located not far from the company’s floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit, which aims for a total export capacity of 8 billion cubic meters per year.

Energean has already presold some of the gas to independent Israeli power producer I.P.M. Beer Tuvia in an agreement set to last 19 years and earn Energean $900 million.

Energean, which is listed on both the London and Tel Aviv stock exchanges, is developing the Karish and Tanin natural gas fields. It also has operations in Greece and the Adriatic.