Large Natural Gas Source Discovered

By comparison, the next largest is the Tamar find, estimated to hold 8.4 tcf, and that estimate is actually about 15% more than the previous estimate. According to Israeli business news agency Globes, Delek Group Ltd. controlling shareholder Yitzhak Tshuva said the Leviathan discovery makes Israel “completely energy independent” and a gas exporter.

While plans for the Leviathan site are still preliminary, the Tamar site is expected to begin producing gas in 2012, according to a press release from Noble Energy. Between the increase in the Tamar reserve estimate and the new Leviathan one, Israel’s gas finds increased by about 17 tcf in one announcement.

The new estimates come less than two months after a US Geological Survey (USGS) assessment for the Levant Basin Province in the Eastern Mediterranean said the region could hold an estimated 122 tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable, natural gas. The USGS press release did not note what nations in the Eastern Mediterranean own the gas or how much. While the production of that natural gas would be spread over years, the total is more than 2008’s worldwide consumption and production of natural gas, according to the Energy Information Administration.

“The Levant Basin Province is comparable to some of the other large provinces around the world, and its gas resources are bigger than anything we have assessed in the United States,” said USGS Energy Resources Program Coordinator Brenda Pierce.