Tamar: Win one contract, lose another

Following Noble Energy and Delek Drilling’s announcement in February that it would be selling gas to Egypt’s Dolphinus Holdings from the Tamar and Leviathan fields, Egypt is ditching a previous agreement to import gas from Tamar.

Madrid’s Union Fenosa Gas had signed a non-binding letter of intent in May 2014 with the Tamar field partners to buy gas for the supply of the Damietta LNG plant in Egypt. The LNG plant is operated by Segas, a JV between Union Fenosa Gas, Eni and the Egyptian state. This arrangement has been cancelled as at the end of March, citing that it was “no longer relevant”.

This suggests that Eni, one of the partners of Segas, will supply Damietta with gas from its Zohr field.

Last month, Dolphinus Holdings had agreed to import 3.5bcm from each of Tamar and Leviathan for a period of 10 years under a contract wortg USD15 billion.

Tamar is owned by Isramco Negev (28.75%), Noble Energy (25% operator), Delek Drilling (22%), Tamar Petroleum (16.75%), Dor Gas (4%) and Everest Infrastructures (3.5%) – this reflects the ownership post the recent sale of 7.5% by Noble Energy to Tamar Petroleum as reported previously (Tamar Petroleum to raise bonds to finance acquisition of Tamar from Noble and Israel capital cycle: Noble sells down Tamar to fund Leviathan).