News Details
Leviathan field partners to set up FLNG to cater EU LNG demand
Israel’s Leviathan partners have decided to liquefy additional gas to be produced from the fields. Three partners of the Leviathan field- located in the Eastern Mediterranean, Ratio Energies, NewMed Energy and Chevron each with 15%, 45.34% and 39.66% respectively, have decided to set up Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) to covert additional gas into LNG for export to the European market.
For Leviathan field expansion and FLNG project, Leviathan partners have approved the budgets of $96.4mil. The scope of the expansion work include the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) to increase the gas production by 9 billion cubic meters per year which will increase the total gas production capacity of Leviathan fields from existing 12bcm/year to 21bcm/year. The gas produced from the Leviathan fields since 2019 is supplied to Israel, Egypt and Jordan.
The proposed FLNG will have the capacity to convert Leviathan gas into 4.6mil mt/year LNG. Israel and Egypt have also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the European Union to supply LNG through the liquefaction plants in Egypt. With the proposed FLNG to be set up near the Leviathan fields, Israel will be able to supply LNG directly to EU as and when its commissioned.
Russia-Ukraine war left European Union member countries without Russian piped gas supply as Russia drastically reduced gas supply to European member countries following international sanctions. Throughout 2022, EU imported LNG- mostly from the US, to manage its gas requirement, replacing Russian piped gas. Most suppliers made huge profit from an extraordinary prices LNG fetched from the EU buyers, desperate to bridge the natural gas supply gap.