TotalEnergies-Israel Deal Clears Way For Drilling Lebanon Border Field

18 Nov 2022 Issue: 65 / 46 By: Peter Stevenson

After last month’s landmark boundary deal, TotalEnergies and Israel have signed a compensation framework enabling the French firm to drill the cross-border Qana prospect. As a price for refusing to recognize Israel, Beirut has subcontracted part of its sovereignty to the French firm.

French major TotalEnergies (60%op) and Italian partner Eni (40%) say they are ready to expedite exploration drilling of the Qana prospect on Lebanon’s offshore Block 9. With previously-shot seismic data indicating that Qana crosses over into Israeli waters the prospect played a key part in the negotiations that finally yielded a historic maritime border deal last month between the two enemy states (MEES, 14 October).

With Lebanon and Israel having no diplomatic relations, negotiations were carried out with US officials as intermediaries. The resultant deal then envisaged that Total would act as an intermediary with Israel in terms of exploration and any future production (including payments): by making the French major responsible for handing over Israel’s share of royalties this would enable Lebanon to avoid dealing with Israel directly, a prerequisite for Beirut in striking last month’s deal. (CONTINUED - 1267 WORDS)