The Lebanese Petroleum Administration (LPA), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Energy, released on Thursday the preliminary results of the exploration drilling in Block 9 of the Lebanese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), conducted by the consortium including TotalEnergies, Eni and QatarEnergy.
In its statement, the LPA intended to clarify a few points following the news about the absence of gas in Block 9 before the detailed technical report drafted by TotalEnergies is issued.
This report is currently being prepared after the end of drilling operations and the gathering of data and samples from the Qana exploration well in the Lebanese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
According to the statement, “The selection of the well’s location in the unexplored Qana area was intended to address two critical questions for the future of exploration operations in Lebanese territorial waters.”
Firstly, the text emphasizes that the goal is to “confirm or refute the existence of reservoirs in Lebanese territorial waters and to study their quality at a certain, as-yet-unexplored geological layer in the Eastern Mediterranean basin (EMB).”
Regarding this issue, the statement specifies, “It has been confirmed that the geological layers in which gas was discovered in the occupied Palestinian Sea (Israel) extend into Lebanese waters, and that high-quality reservoirs containing traces of gas exist at the location where the well was drilled.”
The second point that needs further clarification concerns “establishing the similarity of the geological layers in which gas discoveries have been recorded in the occupied Palestinian Sea (Israel) with those found in Lebanese waters, including their area, and confirming or refuting the existence of gas reservoirs while assessing their quality,” the statement further explains.
In this regard, the LPA discloses that, through the drilling process, “The targeted layers were accessible, and the presence of a high-quality gas reservoir was confirmed in the specific layer mentioned earlier.” However, it explains that “the detection of this reservoir in the Qana basin requires a thorough study for a more precise understanding, allowing a mapping of such reservoirs in the Qana basin and along Block 9 and the adjacent blocks, to better define the locations of reservoirs that could potentially contain commercial quantities of hydrocarbons.”
In other words, what was found on the site drilled at Block 9 does not contain commercial quantities.
According to the statement, “In the coming months, the focus will be on using the data and samples obtained from the well to create a more precise model of the Qana site in order to determine the geographical extent of the reservoirs found inside and in the surrounding areas. This will increase the chances of success for future gas findings in the Qana basin and its vicinity, which extend across multiple areas.”
As a side note, the TotalEnergies, Eni and QatarEnergy consortium began drilling operations off the coast of Naqoura in South Lebanon, in Block 9, on August 23, one week after the arrival of the Transocean Barents exploration platform off the coast of Lebanon on August 16.
In 2018, the consortium won the tender launched by Lebanese authorities for the exploration and exploitation of offshore hydrocarbon resources in blocks 4 and 9 of the Lebanese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which comprises 10 blocks.
In early October, the consortium submitted an offer for the exploration of blocks 8 and 10.
