Companies Bid in Israel’s Northern Offshore Natural Gas Exploration Tender

The Israeli Energy Ministry on Sunday announced that nine companies, grouped into four partnerships, have submitted bids for offshore natural gas explorations in northern Israel. These bids are part of a governmental natural gas tender that has, in the last eight years, granted 18 licenses to explore for oil and natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea.

The current tender, which stopped accepting bids on Sunday, focuses on four zones in close proximity to Israel’s substantial Leviathan and Tamar gas fields off the northern coasts. The ministry refrained from disclosing the bidders’ names per the tender terms but noted that five of the nine participants are new, while the rest already possess licenses for other blocks.

Over the next few weeks, ministry experts will scrutinize the proposals for compliance with professional and economic threshold conditions and the submitted work plans. The results will be passed to the Petroleum Council for recommendations before the ministry’s Commissioner for Petroleum Affairs makes the final decision.