In the midst of a financial collapse Lebanon has decided to further extend the deadline of its second offshore bid round to 15 June 2022. It has updated the tender to include all eight available offshore blocks, when initially Blocks 3, 6 and 7 had not been put on offer (see map). French major Total (40%, operator) holds Block 4 and 9 along with Italy’s Eni (40%) and Russia’s Novatek (20%). To date the only drilling came via the Byblos-1 well in early 2020 in Block 4 which flopped (MEES, 1 May 2020).
The current bid round was officially launched in April 2019, and set to close on 31 January 2020, but following requests from IOCs and the early impact of the coronavirus pandemic the deadline was pushed back to 30 April 2020 (MEES, 24 January 2020). (CONTINUED - 140 WORDS)
