Bethel Finance: Israeli attempts to find local alternatives to Egypt gas hit stumbling block

Bethel Finance news:
Israel is running into local production problems as it tries to reduce its dependence on Egyptian natural gas after a spate of attacks on the North Sinai pipeline.
The Yam Thetis consortium said its ability to produce natural gas at its Mary-B well off Israel's southern Mediterranean coast has declined and a further drop is expected by Noble Energy, the project's operator.

Israel has been forced to compensate for a lack of Egyptian natural gas after the pipeline to the Jewish state was blown up 10 times by militants over the past year.

Egypt resumed pumping low levels of gas to Israel last Wednesday after repairing damage caused by the most recent attack on 18 December.

The Israeli partners in the Yam Thetis consortium -- Delek Drilling and Avner Oil -- said on Tuesday they were studying the implications of this drop in production at Mary-B as well as what measures they might be able to take to narrow this decline.

The companies did not quantify the production decline at the Mary-B well but some have projected the site, Israel's first natural gas field, will run out this year.

Another offshore source for Israel in the Tamar prospect, which contains an estimated 9.1 trillion cubic feet of gas and is being developed by Texas-based Noble Energy. A nearby site, Leviathan, is nearly twice as large and due to be online around 2017.

In the meantime, Yam Thetis said it is going ahead with the development of the Noa North field with an estimated 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas as well as examining the development of small satellite wells.

Gas use in Israel has quadrupled since 2004, and is now the primary source for generating electricity. Shortages of gas supplies mean the state utility Israel Electric Corp has been forced to increase its use of more expensive alternatives such as diesel and fuel oil.

Repeated attacks on the North Sinai pipeline and the consequent use of a diesel alternative cost Israel an average of 10 million shekels (US$2.67 million) a day last summer, according to the country's Ministry of National Infrastructure (MNI).