Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Petroleum will pay over $1 billion for a 22 percent stake in the Tamar offshore gas field offshore from Israel’s Delek Drilling.
Delek on Thursday announced the signing of a sale and purchase agreement.
The current partners in the Tamar project are Delek Drilling (22 percent), Chevron (25 percent), Isramco (28.75 percent), Tamar Petroleum (16.75 percent), Dor Gas (4 percent) and Everest (3.5 percent).
Reserves in the Tamar lease, after production of more than 69.3 billion cubic metres (BCM), is about 300BCM of natural gas and 14 million barrels of condensate.
Under the gas framework, outlined by the Government of Israel, Delek Drilling is obliged to sell all of its holdings in Tamar by the end of 2021.
The Tamar field was discovered in 2009 and is located 90km west of Haifa, offshore Israel, at an overall depth of 5,000 metres below sea level, and in waters that are 1,700 metres deep.
Production began in 2013, where the natural gas in Tamar is extracted through five production wells.
Delek said the discovery and development of the Tamar field which is playing a critical role in de-carbonising the region as gas-produced electricity rapidly replaces electricity derived from coal.
Gas from the Tamar field was also the first gas to be exported from Israel when Jordan began receiving gas from the field in 2017, followed by Egypt in 2020.
Mubadala Petroleum has assets in 10 countries and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company.
Yossi Abu, CEO of Delek Drilling said: ”This transaction marks a milestone in the alignment between Israel and the UAE following the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement signed between the two countries in 2020.
“On completion, the deal will represent one of the largest transactions between an Israeli entity and an Arab entity, which shows how Israel’s natural gas resources can be a source of collaboration between nations.”
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