Energean announces new Israel gas discovery, estimated at 7-15 billion cubic meters

The Energean company announced to the Tel Aviv and London stock exchanges Thursday that its Hermes exploration well in Israeli maritime waters has yielded a new commercial gas discovery of 7-15 billion cubic meters, according to  estimates.

Hermes is located southeast of the Karish field, to which the UK-Greek company holds the production rights.

The Stena IceMax drilling rig has now moved to the so-called Olympus area, located between Energean’s Karish and Tanin fields. The company hopes that exploration will enable it to further refine estimates of natural gas there, which currently stand at a theoretical 58 billion cubic meters, according to Energean’s notice.

The company said that the Hermes discovery had lowered the risk of exploring other nearby areas, such as the Poseidon and Orpheus structures.

Energean has exercised its option to drill a sixth well with Stena Drilling Limited, targeting the Hercules prospect, located on block 23, between Hermes and Israel’s coast.

All of these blocks are located within Israeli waters, south of the maritime area whose ownership is disputed by Israel and Lebanon.

A map of the gas fields being explored by the Energean company this year. (Courtesy Energean)

For the sake of comparison, the Karish and Tanin fields contain a total of around 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas. About 12 billion cubic meters are consumed annually in Israel.

A company spokeswoman said it was impossible to put a price on the figures as it was not yet known how much of the mix in the wells was gas and how much was liquid condensate, which is similar to a light crude oil.