Page 11 - DMEA Week 10 2022

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Israel to close Haifa refinery

as Karish connects to the grid

MIDDLE EAST ISRAEL’S cabinet this week voted unanimously had connected its Karish gas field to the Israel
in favour of closing refining facilities owned by National Gas Line (INGL)
the local Bazan Group as the country pushes to The company took a final investment deci-
promote clean energies as a major gas field was sion (FID) on the Karish North gas development
connected to the grid. in January 2021, less than two years after making
Ministers voted that downstream activities the discovery.
in Haifa Bay should be halted within a decade, Energean, which operates Karish North and
with efforts to be focused on the development of the nearby Karish main, has been certified to
large-scale infrastructure, residential and trans- contain gross 2C resources of 1.2trn cubic feet
portation projects in the area. (33.7bn cubic metres) of gas and 39mn barrels of
The assets of Bazan, formerly Oil Refiner- liquids, according to a competent persons report
ies Ltd (ORL), and owned by Idan Ofer’s Israel (CPR) by DeGolyer & McNaughton published
Corp., comprise 9.8mn tonnes per year (tpy) of in June 2020.
downstream facilities in Haifa Bay as well as an The Karish asset is estimated to hold 267mn
oil storage facility at Kiryat Haim. barrels of oil equivalent of 2P reserves as well as
The refinery imports crude feedstock which another 37mn boe of 2C resources. The discov-
it processes to create various distillates for heavy ery was made in April 2019.
industry, transportation and agriculture, while Gas from the field will be fed into the INGL
the company’s subsidiaries generate products system by the Energean Power FPSO, 90km off-
including lubricants, oils, polymers, waxes and shore, which has now been tied by to Dor Beach
bitumen. in the north of the country. The company’s
Given the country’s plentiful offshore gas field development plan foresees first gas being
resource, encouraging Israel’s private sector to achieved in late 2023.
make the shift from oil to gas should theoreti- Energean CEO Mathios Rigas said the FPSO
cally have been straightforward, but there have “will be the first to be deployed in the eastern
been significant delays over the 12+ years since Mediterranean Sea – providing enhanced secu-
gas was found in the Levantine Basin. rity of supply for both Israeli and regional gas
Another major step towards improving the consumers whilst bolstering Energean’s position
availability of gas in Israel came this week when as a low carbon energy producer, driving the
London-listed Energean announced that it energy transition in the wider Mediterranean”. ™

Week 10 10•March•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11