The New--And Growing--Source Of Conflict Between Israel And Lebanon Is Not On Land

Daled Amos
02 November '10

Is Lebanon looking to add to its world records with the largest natural-gas find in the world in 2009?

An article in the Christian Science Monitor reports:

The recent discoveries of massive gas fields off the coast of northern Israel, tantalizingly close to Lebanese coastal waters, has stirred cash-strapped Lebanon to accelerate efforts to begin its own oil and gas exploration.

But the prospect of previously undiscovered fossil fuel riches off the coasts of Lebanon and Israel risks becoming a new source of conflict as well as an economic windfall for the two warring neighbors.

“This is something big and potentially landscape-changing economically, financially, and politically,” says Nassib Ghobril, head of economic research and analysis at Byblos Bank in Beirut.

Last year, a US-Israeli consortium discovered the Tamar gas field 55 miles off the coast of northern Israel, which contains an estimated 8.4 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas – the largest natural-gas find in the world in 2009. Earlier this year, a field called Leviathan was discovered in the same area with an initial estimate of 16 trillion cubic feet of gas.

But there are likely more untapped fields; the US Geological Survey (USGS) said in March that the Levantine Basin, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Cyprus, could hold as much as 122 trillion cubic feet of gas – and 1.7 billion barrels of oil.

According to the article, Lebanon is strapped for cash and heavily in debt--and would love to have access to these reserves, not to mention others that may be just waiting to be discovered. More to the point, it is not yet known whether the gas field extends into Lebanon's territorial waters.

(Read full post)

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