Leviathan Natural Gas Field, located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea area, off the coast of Israel, was discovered in December 2010. The discovery is situated in 1,645m of water in the Levantine Basin, located approximately 130km west of Haifa, Israel.
At the time of discovery, the Leviathan gas field was the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.
The Leviathan field falls within the precinct of the Rachel and Amit licenses. Production is expected to commence in 2017.
Partners of Noble Energy with interest in Israel’s Mediterranean field
Houston-based oil and natural gas exploration and production company Noble Energy is the operator of the Leviathan gas field. Its share in the project is 39.66%. The Leviathan field is the largest discovery ever for Noble Energy.
Delek Group subsidiaries, Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, have a working interest of 22.67% each in the Leviathan project. Ratio Oil Exploration is the other stakeholder, with 15%.
Geology of the Levantine Basin and recoverable oil and gas reserves
The Levantine geological basin was formed in several main tectonic stages, and early Mesozoic rifting led to the shaping of a large graben and horst system, stretching across the onshore and offshore Levant Basin. The basin is infilled by post-rift tertiary sedimentation.
Reservoirs within the basin mainly contain Mesozoic and Paleogene sandstones, near shore marine and submarine sandstones and Jurassic and Cretaceous shelf-margin carbonates.
The Oligo-Miocene reservoir rocks at Leviathan field are deep-water slope and fan sandstones sealed by sedimentary rocks of the mid to late Miocene age and Messinian age salt. Natural gas at the Leviathan field was found in several sub-salt Miocene intervals.
