The Daily Star cited Mr Explorers will very likely find substantial quantities of natural gas and possibly oil off the Lebanese coast.
Mr David Rowlands CEO of Spectrum said that “You will never know how much gas there is until you drill a well under the sea but you can make an assessment from the site we surveyed. Our assessment indicates so far there is a significant volume of gas to be discovered and maybe even oil.”
Mr Rowlands said that the company would soon begin a 3-D survey in order to better determine the quantities of gas and oil off the Lebanese coast. Spectrum already carried out a 2-D seismic survey off the Lebanese coast in 2000, as well as a second one in 2002.
Spectrum is carrying out the 3-D survey in collaboration with the Norwegian company Dolphin Geophysical which is providing its high capacity seismic vessel, M/V Polar Duke. Both companies have said that the survey would acquire a minimum of 1,500 square kilometers of 3-D data.
Spectrum said that the survey is the first stage of a project that will generate up to 3,000 square kilometers of data when completed. The survey has been fast tracked to conclude in September and the data will start to be made available to the government of Lebanon and other interested clients by November. The final set of data will be completed in early 2013 which is when the Lebanese government has said it will open its first licensinground.
Dolphin said that the mobilization and acquisition would start imminently and fit well with the schedule for Polar Duke’s voyage to a previously announced contract in East Africa which will commence in early October 2012.
Mr Rowlands stressed that all the data would be passed to Lebanon’s Energy Ministry which in turn would offer it to interested oil companies. Our contract with the ministry covers up to 3,000 square kilometers off the Lebanese coast and our survey will be confined to areas within the recognized Lebanese territorial waters. Spectrum would focus its survey on the exclusive territorial waters of Lebanon and would avoid the disputed economic maritime waters near other countries.
He said that we will not be acquiring data from any disputed waters. The area which Spectrum is acquiring is the southwest corner. The survey will start 60 kilometers off the Lebanese shore and extend to the area near the maritime border with Cyprus. We anticipate to have our data available by the end of this year or early next year. The contract allows us to provide copies of the data to interested companies from America, Europe and the Far East. The aim is to get as many companies as possible [vying for tenders], and then they will apply to drill for gas.
Mr Rowlands said that several international companies had already shown keen interest in extracting Lebanon’s oil and gas, saying that the discovery of deposits prompted a stampede to explore the deepwater of the Levantine Basin. Shell, BP and a number of other global firms had voiced interest in drilling.
Source - The Daily Star
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