UN to Assist Lebanon Draw Maritime Borders

Crucial to utilize newly discovered wealth

 

The UN has agreed to help Lebanon demarcate its maritime borders with Israel. Lebanon hopes that the measure would allow it to exploit offshore oil and gas resources that were discovered in the area.

Last August, parliament passed a law that permits oil and gas exploration and drilling under an international law called Production Sharing Agreement, (PSA). The law would permit the government to enter into partnership with international companies. The first exploration license is expected to be tendered toward the end of November.

The United States Geological Survey, (USGS), estimates that the Levant Basin Province, an area of around 83,000 square kilometers off the coasts of Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus and Syria, has 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and some 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. It stressed that these estimates represent technically recoverable oil and gas quantities and not estimates of economically recoverable resources.