Israel Starts Collecting Gas from ‘Tamar’ field

{{Natural gas from the Tamar field off Israel’s Mediterranean shores has started flowing, the first step towards Israel possibly becoming an energy-exporting country within the next few years.}}

The discovery in 2009 led to an exploration frenzy in the Levant Basin – shared between Israel, Cyprus and Lebanon – and the uncovering of a second bigger find, Leviathan, which prompted Israel to set up a natural gas wealth fund.

Tamar alone is expected to meet the country’s natural gas needs for decades.

“Today [we begin] independence in Israeli natural gas. It is an enormous achievement for the Israeli economy and the start of a new era,” said Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva, the controlling shareholder in Delek Group, one of the partners in Tamar on Saturday.

The gas should lead to a reduction in production costs for state utility Israel Electric Corp., as well as a decline in the price of electricity, the Israeli water and energy ministry said last week.

A statement from the production partners, who said they had invested $3bn in developing Tamar, estimated the new gas supplies would save Israel’s economy, which relies heavily on oil imports, $3.6bn per year.

Texas-based Noble Energy holds 36 percent of Tamar.

{Aljazeera}