The deadline for Israel’s November 2018 bid round for 19 offshore blocks (MEES, 30 November 2018) has been pushed back a month, from 17 June to 15 July, the country’s Energy Ministry announced on 6 June. “Due to the number of requests received from companies that purchased the bid round documents” the ministry’s Petroleum Affairs Commissioner “decided to allow them another month to prepare bids.”
This may be correct – though when the previous bid in 2016 was pushed back twice this was in a desperate attempt to prevent a total flop. In the end the only bidders were Greek minnow Energean which took five blocks, while a consortium of Indian firms led by state giant ONGC Videsh took one (MEES, 24 November 2017). Israel hopes that, having purchased a data package, US major ExxonMobil will be the breakthrough entrant in the latest bidding (MEES, 15 March). (CONTINUED - 138 WORDS)