Test results from a gas discovery in the Levantine basin point to an emerging subsalt play. The deepwater well on the Tamar structure, 90 km (56 mi) offshore Haifa, Israel, encountered three productive reservoirs with thick sands in the Lower Miocene and net pay of more than 460 ft (140m).

Gas flowed at a constrained rate of 30 MMcf/d over a limited section of the lowest reservoir, and operator Noble Energy be­lieves a production rate of over 150 MMcf/d could be feasible. It claimed the find could be the largest in its history, with a resource potential of around 5 tcf. The water depth of 5,500 ft (1,680 m) was also the deep­est by far for any well to date in Is­raeli waters.

Noble and its partners are set to retain the rig, the Atwood Hunter, for two more wells. The first would be on Dalit, another Tertiary/Lower Miocene subsalt prospect in 4,500 ft (1,372 m) of water in the Michal per­mit, 28 mi (45 km) offshore, which is already covered by 3D seismic. The second well would be a step-out on Tamar, in the Matan license.

Further gas finds would help ease Israel’s energy concerns. The coun­try’s sole production comes from the Man-B field in shallow water off the southern coast. The Gaza Marine discovery has yet to be put into pro­duction. Otherwise, the only exter­nal source of gas is a pipeline from Egypt, but throughput has been sub­ject to interruptions.

In recent years, Houston-based No­ble and local company Delek Drilling have been the mainstays of Israeli E&P Prior to Tamar, there had been no ex­ploration drilling for several years, but more recently other companies have picked up offshore concessions. These include Israeli junior PetroMed, which last year converted two deepwater exploration permits in the Le­vantine basin to drilling licenses (Sara and Myra) both a short distance from the Matan license. The company also operates an adjoin­ing exploration permit (Benjamin).

PetroMed’s interpretive studies of existing geological and seismic data since 2005 indicated strong potential for thermogenic gas, and for condensate and oil at deeper levels. The company’s acreage is close to the Tamar discovery and on trend with the Dalit structure. PetroMed also has found strong indications of deeper lying, light Jurassic oil, based on wells closer to the Israeli coast and via geological analogies with recent ultra deep discoveries in the Nile Delta to the south.

AJ Amir is chairman and CEO of PetroMed, supported by finance di­rector Koch, who is based in Seattle. Other board members include Arlon Tussing, a former chief energy advis­er to the US Senate and now energy consultant for the World Bank and Deutsche Bank.

The company’s exploration team of experienced geologists and geophysi­cists, all based in the UK, are headed by exploration manager David Peace. The team is complemented by exter­nal consultants RPS, providing as­sistance with 3D survey design and specialized data reprocessing, and Aberdeen-based contractors to help with early well planning.

For much of his exploration career Peace has worked in the greater Medi­terranean region. He worked in Milan for Agip and Penn Geophysical, and headed an interpretation team of eight geologists and geophysicists for Agip review­ing much of the Italian offshore region and the Po Valley. In the 1990s, he was Texaco’s explo­ration manager, based in Rome, and a director of Texaco Italiana Spa.

After leaving Texaco in 1998, Peace was an independent exploration consultant and conducted a regional evaluation of the en­tire Eastern Mediterranean based on Spec­trum’s regional seismic grid of 25,000-line km (15,534 mi).

“Spectrum had a regional seismic grid around Cyprus and Lebanon,” he explains, “based on a reprocessed speculative survey originally acquired in 1975. This data was a wide-spaced regional survey from southern Turkey to the eastern Nile Delta, and cov­ered the thrust zone between Anatolia and North Africa — one of the major continental margins — and it revealed a very attractive new play.

“The old data had imaged the entire Le­vantine basin, which had not really been explored by any of the countries in the re­gion. Due to recording limitations, they had only recorded the first five to six seconds of data — hence also seeing only the top of the basin. However, when Spectrum acquired its 20,000 km (12,427 mi) of new seismic in 2001-2002, it recorded down to 12 seconds, which allowed us to see the deeper part of the basin.”

The only prior wells in the area were off southern Turkey and had led to some small discoveries in the Iskendrun basin. Spec­trum’s new seismic provided a more de­tailed 2D grid over offshore southern Tur­key, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel, Gaza, and the outer fringes of Egypt, and was designed to promote licensing rounds in these countries.

In 2001, when the surveys were being acquired, the Lebanese government was in talks about a first offshore round, but this never came about at the time. Cyprus also considered staging a round, although this did not take place until 2007-08.

“To date,” Peace adds, “there has been no offshore drilling either in Syria or Cy­prus, and only one well offshore Lebanon. Onshore Cyprus, which is the epicenter of the collision zone with Africa, is one of the toughest to interpret geologically in the world, but we see the sedimentary plays on the fringes of the Levantine basin as very interesting.”

In late 2002, Peace began evaluating Spectrum’s entire database for the eastern Mediterranean region, concluding the pro­gram in fall 2003. The results looked very promising: “In the Levantine basin, includ­ing the Latakia thrust zone in the north, we identified some very interesting structural patterns which showed a lot of individual seismic leads, from small closures to much larger simple structural traps.”

“At that time I was with Texaco and to us, the whole area looked rather gas-prone in the early days. Later on, however, the focus of Nile Delta exploration switched to drilling through the Messinian salt zone, and over the last few years companies have found not just biogenic gas of shallow origin, but also deeper thermogenic gas and, more recently, condensate and oil 4.5 km (2.8 mi) down in the high-pressure/high-temperature zone. So the message is clear: biogenic gas in the shallow section, but thermogenic gas, con­densate and free oil in the deeper pre-salt section, a situation we believe exists in the Levantine basin as well.

“From our evaluation of the Spectrum regional data, we can see that the Levantine basin has some characteristics and geologi­cal conditions similar to the Nile Delta (al­though not at all identical) and which extend into PetroMed’s licenses. Inshore from our blocks, two older wells have already tested 800 b/d of light ‘Jurassic’ oil from deeper ly­ing Jurassic strata underlying our permits. These excellent oil shows are almost cer­tainly the result of migration from the deep­er parts of the basin to the west, and provide further evidence for an active thermogenic hydrocarbon system in the deeper part of the Levantine basin, in part mirroring what we see off Egypt.”

The Sara and Myra licenses both cover 400 sq km (154 sq mi). Peace and his team so far have identified two large prospective lead areas, one in each license, in water depths of around 1,100 m (3,609 ft). One is a thick four-way dip closure from Tertiary to Jurassic, which is on trend with the Dalit structure in the adjacent Noble-operated permit. The second prospect is a potential reef growth on top of an older high, which is in turn overlain by potential Cretaceous and Tertiary reservoirs, as confirmed in Tamar.

The company has a letter of agreement for a 3D seismic vessel, and alms to start acquir­ing 3D over the two license areas by mid­year, followed by detailed processing and pre-stacked depth migration of the data.

“We will do the interpretation ourselves,” Peace says. ‘We’re happy that the structures are there from the 2D data, so the main pur­pose of the 3D seismic is to confirm internal geological detail within each of the struc­tures to allow us to optimize future drilling locations.

‘We need 3D data primarily to define these structures in greater detail — we can see anomalies within them that cannot be resolved by 2D seismic. Thereafter, we plan to select our best drilling locations and be ready to spud our first well within two and a half years from now. At the same time, it is also a case of getting partners on board to share the well costs.”

According to Hagai Amir, PetroMed has been in open dialogue with several major oil companies in this regard. “At this time,” he says, “we are open to offers from potential new financial partners and strategic part­ners from the industry. Ideally, the partner we would prefer would be an established in­ternational oil and gas company with signifi­cant drilling and operational experience.

“PetroMed is currently operator of all three licenses and permits for all technical work up to the initial well spud, but we would welcome specialized geophysical technical assistance from suitably experienced new partners as well. As we are only a small com­pany, we would also prefer that a more expe­rienced oil company partner would operate as we enter the actual drilling phase.”

Water depths in the two drilling permits extend to 1,500 m (4,921 ft). Both carry ini­tial three-year terms, but in the event of a discovery, these can be renewed for a fur­ther four years for appraisal drilling, and 25 years for subsequent development and pro­duction. The work obligations for the adjoin­ing, 18-month exploration permit include geological studies and 2D seismic.

“Our long-term ambition,” says Amir, “is to build a stronger and stronger explora­tion position, work up opportunities that will attract further industry partners, and see them developed while retaining an inter­est therein. In time the company may also consider venturing outside Israel to explore other opportunities, but the recent discov­ery of Tamar has confirmed our belief in the region, and we are very happy with our cur­rent acreage.”

Israel Noble Finds Gas in Deep waters Offshore Noble Energy, Inc. 3/30/2009

Noble Energy has made a natural gas discovery at the Dalit prospect in the Michal license, offshore Israel. Located in approximately 4,500 feet of water and 30 miles offshore, the well was drilled by the Atwood Hunter semi-submersible rig to a depth of 12,000 feet. Formation logs identified more than 110 feet of net pay in a high-quality reservoir.

Dalit represents the Company's second subsalt, lower-Miocene discovery in the under explored Levantine basin.

Charles D. Davidson, Noble Energy's Chairman, President and CEO, said, "With the successes at Tamar and Dalit, we have potentially opened up a substantial new resource basin, where we have an interest in about three million gross acres. We are moving forward with development plans to bring first production to Israel from this new region in 2012. At the same time, we continue to remain focused on the vast exploration potential remaining, and we plan to conduct new 3D seismic later this year over various leads in our other licenses in the area. Based on results from the seismic program, we could see further exploration in the region starting in the second half of 2010."

Production testing will be performed at Dalit after the well is completed. Subsequent to testing, the rig will return to the Tamar discovery in the Matan license to drill an appraisal well designed to better define the resources of Tamar.

Noble Energy operates both the Michal and Matan licenses with a 36 percent working interest. Other interest owners are Isramco Negev 2 with 28.75 percent, Delek Drilling with 15.625 percent, Avner Oil Exploration with 15.625 percent and Dor Gas Exploration with the remaining four percent.