Lebanon on Friday signed its first contract to drill for oil and gas off its coast with a consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI, and Novatek, including in a block disputed by Israel.
Israel says one of two blocks in the eastern Mediterranean where Lebanon wants to drill for oil belongs to it, and last week denounced any exploration by Beirut as “provocative.”
President Michel Aoun said at a signing ceremony that Lebanon has “entered a new chapter in its history and is now a member of energy-producing countries.”
Looking to tap potential oil and gas reserves after major offshore discoveries by neighboring Israel and Cyprus, the Mediterranean country in December approved a bid on blocks four and nine.
Block nine is the disputed block with Israel.
Exploration is set to begin in 2019.
French energy giant Total and Italy’s Eni each hold a 40 percent stake in the consortium, and Russia’s Novatek has a 20 percent stake.
Total welcomed the deal, saying it stipulates that drilling will take place in “at least one well per block in the first three years,” and that the “consortium’s priority will be to drill a first exploration well on Block 4 in 2019.”
“As for Block 9, Total and its partners are fully aware of the Israeli-Lebanese border dispute in the southern part of the block that covers only very limited area (less than 8 percent of the block’s surface).
“Given that the main prospects are located more than 25 km (15.5 miles) from the disputed area, the consortium confirms that the exploration well on Block 9 will have no interference at all with any fields or prospects located south of the border area,” it added in a statement issued in English.
Last week, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman accused Lebanon of “provocative behavior.”
“They issue a tender on a gas field — including a bloc which by all accounts is ours — to international groups that are respectable companies, which, to my mind, is making a serious mistake, since it’s against all rules and protocol in cases like this,” he said.
Lebanese Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil responded by saying Lebanon would defend its right to drill there.
“Israel will do what it can to block us from taking advantage of our oil wealth, and we will do everything in our power to defend it,” he said.
Tensions between the two neighbors — which are technically still at war — have also mounted as Israel pursues the construction of a barrier along the border.
Lebanon says part of the wall follows the UN-demarcated “Blue Line” drawn up after Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, and insists some sections will cut into its territory.
A Palestinian rioter was reportedly shot dead Friday by Israeli fire as security forces faced down riots on the Gaza border and at several locations across the West Bank.
The Palestinian, a teenager according to Palestinian media, was reportedly shot in the head in Jabaliya in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, near the border with Israel.
Two Palestinians were reported injured in the Ramallah area of the West Bank in a separate violent protest.
The clashes broke out at the end of Friday prayers in mosques as Palestinians heeded calls by the Hamas terror group and other organizations to wage yet another “day of rage” against Israel — the first for a month but the tenth since US President Donald Trump’s December 6 announcement that his administration recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Hadashot television news reported that some 500 Palestinians took part in the rioting at six West Bank flashpoints and that Israeli forces used live fire on demonstrators at the village of Beita, near Nablus.
At the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus, and on al-Quds street within the city itself, security forces used riot dispersal methods against the protesters, including tear gas.
Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian factions, also called the day of rage to honor Ahmad Jarrar, the suspected ringleader of a terrorist cell responsible for murdering Rabbi Raziel Shevach in January. Jarrar was killed by security forces in a shootout on Tuesday.
Jarrar’s ability to evade capture for more than two weeks had turned him into a Palestinian hero, and on the streets of Nablus, protesters could be heard shouting, “Allah, have mercy on Ahmad Jarrar.”
Earlier in the day, Israeli Border Police arrested a Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Hebron after finding a knife hidden under his clothes at the entrance to the Tomb of the Patriarchs holy site.
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