...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...will become an oil state,’ says Beirut’s energy minister, as country looks to potential fruit of border agreement with Israel to get it out of its deep crisis
An offshore drilling rig has arrived at its location in the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon’s coast and will start operations in the coming weeks to search for gas, Lebanese cabinet ministers said Wednesday.
The rig is expected to begin drilling in September in Lebanese waters near the border with Israel after the two countries reached a deal last year on their maritime border. Lebanon and Israel have formally been at war since Israel’s creation in 1948.
Cash-strapped Lebanon hopes that future gas discoveries will help the small Middle East nation pull itself out of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.
Minister of Transport Ali Hamie wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the rig arrived Wednesday morning at the location where it is scheduled to begin work. The rig faces the southern port city of Tyre.
"We hope that Lebanon will become an oil state," Lebanon’s Energy Minister Walid Fayyad told news hounds in Beirut, adding that the results of the drilling are expected in two or three months.
In 2017, Lebanon approved licenses for an international consortium including La Belle France’s TotalEnergies, Italia’s ENI and Russia’s Novatek to move forward with offshore oil and gas development for two of 10 blocks in the Mediterranean.
The borders of one of the two blocks were disputed by Israel until the maritime border deal was reached last year with the previous government headed by Yair Lapid. Then-opposition chief Benjamin Netanyahu had lambasted the deal as a surrender of national resources to an enemy state, but hasn’t moved to cancel it since he returned to power.
In January, Lebanon, ENI, TotalEnergies and state-owned oil and gas company Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
Energy signed an agreement in which the Qatari firm replaced Novatek. Under the deal signed in January, Qatar Energy will take Novatek’s 20-percent stake in addition to 5% each from ENI and Total, leaving the Arab company with a total stake of 30%. Total and ENI will each have 35% stakes.
Under the US-mediated deal between Lebanon and Israel that was signed in October, the disputed waters would be divided along a line straddling the "Qana" natural gas field in the Mediterranean. Total said gas production would be based on the Lebanese side, but Israel would be compensated for gas extracted from its side of the line under a separately signed deal between Total and Israel.