An offshore drilling rig arrived at its destination in the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon's coast and will start operations in the coming weeks to search for gas, cabinet ministers said Wednesday.

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The rig is expected to begin drilling this month in Lebanese waters near the border with Israel after the two countries reached a deal last year on their maritime border. Lebanon and Israel have formally been at war since Israel's creation in 1948.

Video: Drilling rig arrives in Lebanon's block 9 to begin exploration / Credit: Reuters

Cash-strapped Lebanon hopes that future gas discoveries will help the small Mideast nation pull itself out of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.

Caretaker Minister of Transport Ali Hamie wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the rig arrived Wednesday morning at the location where it is scheduled to begin work. The rig faces the southern port city of Tyre.

"We hope that Lebanon will become an oil state," Lebanon's Energy Minister Walid Fayyad told reporters in Beirut, adding that the results of the drilling are expected in two or three months.

TotalEnergies said in a statement that the rig, Transocean Barents, is now at around 120 kilometers (75 miles) off the coast of Beirut, and the first helicopter that will transport teams to and from the rig is at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport.

"The arrival of the equipment marks an important step in the preparation of the drilling of the exploration well" this month, TotalEnergies said.
In 2017, Lebanon approved licenses for an international consortium including France's TotalEnergies, Italy's ENI, and Russia's Novatek to move forward with offshore oil and gas development for two of 10 blocks in the Mediterranean. The borders of one of the two blocks were disputed by neighboring Israel until the maritime border deal was reached last year.

In January, Lebanon, ENI, TotalEnergies, and state-owned oil and gas company Qatar Energy signed an agreement in which the Qatari firm replaced Novatek. Under the deal, Qatar Energy will take Novatek's 20% stake in addition to 5% each from ENI and TotalEnergies, leaving the Arab company with a total stake of 30%. Total and ENI will each have 35% stakes.

Under the US-mediated deal between Lebanon and Israel that was signed in October, the disputed waters would be divided along a line straddling the "Qana" natural gas field in the Mediterranean. Gas production would be based on the Lebanese side, but Israel would be compensated for gas extracted from its side of the line under a separately signed deal between TotalEnergies and Israel.

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Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud also told a mining conference in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest exporter of crude oil, that the kingdom planned to use its vast uranium resources to develop a nuclear power program.

The minister said he was still worried about the energy transition and that it needed to be thought through carefully.

"It may end up being a leap into the future, unfortunately, an unknown future," he said. "We should not forfeit energy security for the sake of a publicity stunt. That transition needs to be (a) well-thought-of transition."

Saudi Arabia said more than a decade ago that it was considering developing its own nuclear power program but it has yet to build any nuclear plants. Prince Abdulaziz said that Saudi Arabia would be manufacturing and developing uranium.

"Let me be very specific about it, we do have a huge amount of uranium resources that we would like to exploit and we will be doing it in the most transparent way, we will be bringing in partners," the minister said.

He said Saudi Arabia would be publishing its energy strategy soon and that it was well-placed to become the cheapest producer of so-called green hydrogen.

"Our business model would enable us to do that ... we are very open to every opportunity that comes our way and every technology," Prince Abdulaziz said.

Saudi Arabia Mining Co. (Ma'aden), the Gulf's largest miner, would also be creating a subsidiary for investments abroad.

"We have the foresight to put together through our champion in minerals, Ma'aden, a subsidiary company that will be developed very soon to venture abroad with partners," he said.

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Israel has saved 180 billion shekels ($57 billion) since 2013 thanks to the switch to natural gas, according to a report presented at the Knesset this week by the Energy Ministry.

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Data shows that NIS 51 billion ($16 billion) was saved due to the reduction in the cost of energy production for electricity and industry, and NIS 130 billion ($41 billion) due to the decrease in air pollution following a reduction in coal and fuel oil use.

By 2025, coal-run power plants will fully transition to natural gas, the report said. Between 2019 and 2020, the total supply of natural gas to the economy spiked by 43%. Export of natural gas went from non-existent in 2016 to 4.25 billion cubic meters last year.

The Energy Ministry estimates that by 2045, natural gas consumption by the electricity sector will increase by 150%, and as such, it will continue to serve as a major energy source alongside solar energy and wind power.

Currently, four hospitals and eight Israel Defense Forces camps are connected to the natural gas networks, with many more expected to join in the coming years.

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Syria will host an Arab energy conference in 2024, the country's energy ministry said Thursday, the latest sign that Arab countries are moving to re-engage with the government of Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad.

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The announcement followed a unanimous vote from members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries during a virtual meeting Thursday, the ministry said. The conference will be held in Damascus, according to a ministry statement on Facebook and the official state news agency SANA. Qatar is hosting the 2023 conference.

Arab countries have in recent months been making limited moves to improve relations with Syria, a decade after it was shunned and kicked out of the Arab League at the onset of the country's civil war in 2011.

The rapprochement has included the reopening of several embassies, visits by Arab officials to Damascus and restoring some commercial ties with the war-torn country. The moves are a recognition of the facts on the ground – after years of war and despite the initial support by some Arab countries to his opposition, Assad's government has survived and his forces have regained control of much of the country.

Syria's civil war has displaced half of its population, killed hundreds of thousands and driven the country's economy into the ground.

Before the war, Syria produced 350,000 barrels of oil a day, exporting more than half of it. It now averages around 24,000 barrels a day, covering only a fraction of domestic needs. Most of its oil fields are in the hands of Kurdish-led forces, who administer an autonomous region in the country's northeast. Assad's government has relied on a top ally, Iran, for oil supplies.

In recent weeks, a deal was signed with Egypt to extend natural gas through Syria to Lebanon using an Arab oil pipeline that has been out of service for a decade.

OAPEC was founded in Beirut in 1968 with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya as its first members. Its headquarters are in Kuwait. Algeria, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain joined three years later. The organization's charter was later changed to allow members where petroleum is an essential source of income, though not the main one. Syria and Egypt also subsequently joined the group.

The organization's website says the total reserves of the member states are estimated at 704 billion barrels a year.

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Renewable energy options in Israel are "near zero," and the country will have no alternative to building additional power stations, an economist for the energy sector in the Budget Department of the Finance Ministry Ido Mor said Tuesday.

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Speaking at the 18^th Israel Energy and Business Convention 2021 at the Kfar Maccabiah Hotel in Ramat Gan, Mor said that "Israel was under-performing in terms of renewable energies, but even if we meet the goals we will have no choice other than to plan and build more power stations."

Mor said that the government's goal of transitioning Israel to 20% renewable energy by 2025 would "require a herculean effort, and we need to prepare for the possibility we won't meet it."

"In any case, moving the economy to electricity in the long term is more important than the short term, and we will need to ensure a supply of electricity when we bring a metro, light trains, electric trains, and more on line. All this requires preparation and more power stations," Mor said.

Chen Herzog, chief economist at BDO Israel, sounded more decisive and told the conference that "it is not feasible to meet the government's goal of 20% renewable energies by 2025," and that "so we don't have excuses in 2030, there need to be goals that can be met, rather than utopian ones."

According to Herzog, regulators would have to admit that Israel would not meet its 2025 goal and take steps to reduce emissions rather that focus solely on renewable energies: "For example, accelerating the developing of electric transportation and construction efficient power stations, as well as developing a competitive market for renewable energies."

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For the first time since the signing of the Abraham Accords, energy ministers from Israel, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and the United States convened a video conference on Thursday evening.

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The historic conference was held in the wake of the successful meeting last month in Abu Dhabi that included the energy ministers from Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and the US. Within the framework of that meeting, the ministers decided to meet for a second time and expand their energy-related partnerships to include Morocco and Sudan, which recently normalized relations with Israel, and Egypt as well, which is spearheading the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF).

Participating in Thursday's video conference were Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, Egyptian Minister of Petroleum & Mineral Resources Tarek El-Molla, Emirati Energy Minister Mohamed Faraj al-Mazrouei, Bahraini Energy Minister Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Ahmed, Moroccan Minister of Energy, Mines and Environment Aziz Rabbah, and Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining Khairy Abdel Rahman.

The ministers discussed matters pertaining to oil and natural gas, energy efficiency, renewable energy, research and development. They also discussed the ways to improve national security, economic prosperity and further investment in infrastructure and technology.

"This is another historic benchmark," Steinitz said about the meeting Thursday, "and is about leveraging the field of energy to advance cooperation and dialogue with Arab countries. There's no doubt that the EMGF in Cairo, which I helped establish two and a half years ago, is now paving the path for additional partnerships in the fields of renewable energy, research and development, and also the possibility of connecting power grids in the near future."

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The US Department of Energy and Israeli Energy Ministry along with the Israel Innovation Authority have selected eight clean energy projects to receive $7.15 million under the Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Energy program. The total value of the projects is $17.4 million, which includes $10.25 million in cost-share from the companies selected for funding.

BIRD Energy began in 2009 as a result of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Since then, including the projects announced today, BIRD Energy has funded 55 projects with a total government investment of approximately $42 million in addition to approximately $55 million in funds matched by the private sector.

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Each project is conducted by a US and an Israeli partner. Selected projects address energy challenges and opportunities that are of interest to both countries and focus on commercializing clean energy technologies that improve economic competitiveness, create jobs and support innovative technologies and companies.

"The BIRD Energy program fosters collaboration between US and Israeli companies that has produced real innovations in renewable energy and energy efficiency. This partnership continues to build bilateral relationships that will benefit our economies and environment for years to come," said US Secretary of Energy, Dan Brouillette.

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said, "I am proud of the successful collaboration between Israeli and US companies, which is based on mutual trust and groundbreaking innovation in the energy market. I hope that these R&D projects will bring us closer to an efficient and clean energy market. Government investment in R&D is important to help reach these goals, and as a recovery tool from the Coronavirus crisis we are experiencing now."

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The deal has chiseled away at the monopoly held by Houston-based Noble Energy and Israel's Delek Group, which discovered and developed the fields, bringing prices down. The country is on track to phase out coal and derive nearly all its electricity from cleaner-burning gas and solar power by 2025, and is exporting gas to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.

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But the financial benefits have yet to trickle down to Israeli consumers, who continue to pay stubbornly high electricity costs even as oil and gas prices have plunged in recent years.

As the scramble for natural gas creates new alliances and rivalries across the eastern Mediterranean, Israel's experience shows that while big gas discoveries can yield geopolitical clout they don't always deliver the riches promised by politicians.

The government says the gas reserves have turned Israel into a regional player and solidified ties with two Arab neighbors. Israel has also teamed up with Cyprus and Greece for a planned $6 billion pipeline to Europe, strengthening its position as it prepares to hold rare talks with Lebanon this week over their disputed maritime border.

But the so-called EastMed pipeline has heightened tensions with Turkey and is fraught with political and logistical challenges. It could prove infeasible if gas prices remain low and Europe accelerates its shift to renewable energy.

At the time of the 2015 gas deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised "hundreds of millions of shekels for education, welfare, health and for every Israeli citizen," but a hoped-for sovereign wealth fund has yet to materialize because revenues have been lower than expected.

Israel's revenues from oil and gas royalties have hovered around $250 million a year since 2015, less than 1% of the country's most recent national budget, of around $135 billion.

Prior to the 2015 gas framework agreement, a partnership between Noble and Delek was the main developer of the Tamar field, which went online in 2013, and Leviathan – one of the largest gas fields discovered in the Mediterranean – which went online last year.

The gas deal required them to sell two smaller fields, which were acquired by the Greek firm Energean in 2016. Delek must sell its share of Tamar next year, and Noble – which was recently acquired by gas giant Chevron – is required to reduce its holdings.

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, a driving force behind the 2015 agreement, says the restructuring of the industry has brought new contract prices down from more than $6 per million British Thermal Units to less than $4 per mmBTU.

"The reality is very clear. Prices today are much lower than they used to be before the framework," he said, adding that he expects a further drop of up to 25%.

That's true for new contracts, but the price Israeli consumers pay is still largely determined by a 2012 contact between Tamar and the state-run Israel Electric Corporation, in which prices are tethered to the US consumer price index and have steadily risen since 2015 to more than $6 per mmBTU, even as global prices have plunged.

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Orit Farkash-Hacohen served as the head of the Public Utilities Authority at the time the framework was being negotiated and was sidelined after arguing that the pricing mechanism was unfair to consumers. She had suggested prices be pegged to an international basket instead, and that Israel push for the change as part of the 2015 agreement.

Israel's antitrust commissioner resigned in protest after arguing that the 2015 deal would not bring competition to the market, and thousands took to the streets in demonstrations. Netanyahu was eventually able to push it through by citing national security considerations.

Farkash-Hacohen supports much of the framework, but faults the government for not renegotiating the main contract between the gas companies and the IEC.

"When you're dealing with an electricity monopoly you regulate its prices in order for it not to misuse its power," said Farkash-Hacohen, who was recently appointed tourism minister.

"In that sense it was a missed opportunity that unfortunately affected the cost of living of the people of the state of Israel."

Gabriel Mitchell, an energy researcher at Israel's Mitvim Institute, says Israelis are paying prices that are "wildly above" those available on the international market.

"One of the big issues that we're seeing now in 2020, with everything that's happened post-coronavirus and with the collapse of global energy prices, is that the average Israeli is paying somewhere between two and three times the amount for a unit of energy than is available on the global market," he said.

He and other critics point to the IEC's recent purchase of liquified natural gas on the international market for a lower price than it is getting from Israel's own fields.

The US Henry Hub price, seen as an international benchmark for natural gas purchases, has averaged around $2.75 per mmBTU over the past five years and fell below $2 after the pandemic caused a global drop in demand.

The price of the Tamar gas has steadily risen during the same period, and Israelis have seen little change in their electricity bills since 2015, with tariffs hovering around 14 cents per kilowatt hour.

When asked about the high prices enshrined in the Tamar contract, Chevron, which completed its acquisition of Noble last Monday, said it "firmly believes in the sanctity of contracts."

"These are very early days and as we continue to build relationships with all of our stakeholders in Israel, we are confident that they will see Chevron is committed to building trusted and mutually beneficial relationships," it said in a statement.

The Israeli government says the shift from coal to natural gas has been good for the environment. Natural gas burns cleaner than coal or oil, cutting down on air pollution. But the drilling and transport of natural gas results in the leakage of methane, which has 86 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In January, Israel began exporting gas to Egypt under a 10-year deal valued at $15 billion. In 2016, Noble and Delek reached a $10 billion agreement to export gas to Jordan over 15 years.

Israel's excess gas revenues were supposed to flow into a sovereign wealth fund for investment abroad, a path to riches used by other big exporters. The fund was supposed to be launched in 2018, but has yet to reach the 1 billion shekels ($290 million) required to begin investing.

Authorities hope to launch the fund next year. That's also when Delek is set to sell off its share of Tamar and when the IEC is eligible to renegotiate its costly Tamar contract. That should bring prices down, but Farkash-Hacohen says it should have happened much earlier.

"Why were they given full immunity of prices, and secondly, such a long period of time to divest their ownership?" she said.

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In unusually harsh language, Walid al-Moallem said "the Turkish regime reigns supreme" when it comes "to sponsors and financiers of terrorism."

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He said in a prerecorded speech to the first-ever high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic that the cutoff of water supplies endangered civilian lives, especially during the coronavirus crisis.

The nine-year Syrian conflict, which initially began as a civil war, later became a regional proxy fight. Turkey, which now controls a zone in northern Syria, has backed opposition fighters against Syrian President Bashar Assad, Syrian Kurdish fighters and the Islamic State extremist group.

Al-Moallem also accused Turkey of moving "terrorists and mercenaries -- referred to by some as 'moderate opposition' -- from Syria to Libya," violating Syria's sovereignty, using refugees "as bargaining chips against Europe" and laying claim "by force to energy resources in the Mediterranean."

"The current Turkish regime has become a rogue and outlaw regime under international law," the Syrian minister said. "Its policies and actions, which threaten the security and stability of the whole region, must be stopped."

Turkey's UN Mission said it "rejects Syrian regime's delusional statement, ridden with ludicrous allegations, in its entirety."

"It's shameful and unacceptable that the murderous Syrian regime which lost its legitimacy long ago continues to misuse [the] UN General Assembly general debate to distort the facts," said a mission spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The Syrian regime is responsible for death, mutilation, abduction, starvation and enforced disappearance of millions of Syrians," the spokesperson said. "Its crimes against humanity, violations of international humanitarian law, and the war crimes have been documented in countless UN reports."

Al-Moallem declared that the Syrian government "will spare no effort to end the occupation by all means possible under international law" of American and Turkish forces.

US troops are deployed in the country to fight the Islamic State.

"The actions of these forces, taken directly or through their terrorist agents, secessionist militias, or manufactured and illegitimate entities, are null and void, with no legal effect," he said.

Al-Moallem, who is also deputy prime minister, denounced US sanctions, saying they are blocking the delivery of life-saving medicine and equipment during the pandemic.

He called the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act passed by the US Congress an "inhumane attempt to suffocate Syrians, just like George Floyd and others were cruelly suffocated in the United States, and just like Israel suffocates Palestinians on a daily basis."

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Al-Moallem called on all countries affected by unilateral sanctions "and those that reject such measures to close ranks against them and alleviate their impact on our peoples ... through cooperation, coordination, and concrete political, economic and commercial means."

On the political front, he said Syria's government hopes a committee given the responsibility of drafting a new constitution for the country "will succeed." But, he said, this will be possible only "if there is no external interference whatsoever in its work and by any party."

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The Israel Meteorological Service registered temperatures including 42°C (107.6°F) in Eilat, 38°C (100.4°F) in Jerusalem, 47°C (116.6°F) in Tiberias and 33°C (91.4°F) in Haifa.

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Despite the heat, the Health Ministry has issued a statement calling on the public to wear face masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines.

The ministry warned Israelis, especially senior citizens and those who suffer from chronic health conditions, to "avoid exposure to heat and sun, as well as unnecessary physical exertion, while drinking water and residing in air-conditioned places as much as possible."

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority has banned hiking on certain routes, including in the Judean Desert, until temperatures go down.

On Sunday afternoon, electricity consumption in Israel hit an all-time national record of 14,089 megawatts (MW), topping by 135 MW the previous record set earlier this year during an unusual heatwave in May.

During the May heatwave, the Health Ministry temporarily waived the requirement to wear face masks in public.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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