Naharnet

Report: Oil File Back to Spotlight as Berri Raises Issue with Salam

Speaker Nabih Berri will raise the issue of Lebanon's oil exploration file with PM Tammam Salam at the sidelines of the national dialogue session to be held on Tuesday in Ain al-Tineh, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday.

Berri will press the need to list the issue on the cabinet's agenda to be discussed during its coming session, said the daily.

The Speaker has highlighted the need to start issuing decrees that allow Lebanon to benefit from its oil wealth.

The step compliments discussions that took place lately between Berri, Energy Minister Arthur Nazariam and a delegation from the oil committee where serious intentions arose to put the issue on the front burner.

In 2015, Lebanese authorities received information that Israel had started drilling oil and gas wells near Lebanon's Exclusive Economic Zone by its southern border.

In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Cyprus.

In August 2014, the government postponed for the fifth time the first round of licensing for gas exploration over a political dispute.

The disagreements were over the designation of blocks open for bidding and the terms of a draft exploration agreement.

Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a maritime zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves that could generate billions of dollars.

Lebanese officials have continuously warned that Israel's exploration of new offshore gas fields near Lebanese territorial waters means the Jewish state is siphoning some of Lebanon's crude oil.

The U.S. had offered to mediate between the sides in an attempt to reach a solution.

Beirut argues that a maritime map it submitted to the U.N. is in line with an armistice accord drawn up in 1949, an agreement which is not contested by Israel.

Source: Naharnet


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