Tamar owners approve $265 million to drill sixth gas well

The Tamar natural-gas consortium will begin drilling a new well in the near future, Delek Drilling and Afek Oil & Gas announced Sunday. The reservoir’s sixth well, named Tamar-8, will cost $265 million to dig, they said.

Drilling will begin in the fourth quarter and connect it to the 2820-billion-cubic-meter reservoir’s infrastructure.

According to Delek and Afek, the additional well is intended to supplement the existing Tamar supply during peak usage. In general, electric companies get priority access to the natural-gas supply over private companies when there is high demand. This could possibly alleviate the need for factories to switch back to other forms of power.

Drilling will take place about 100 kilometers away from the Haifa coast. The water depth in this area is 1.7 km. deep, while the drilling will go about 3.5 km. underneath the seabed.

The drilling stage is expected to take two and a half months, while an additional month and a half will is expected to outfit the well with the pipe, filter and valves need to hook up to the main Tamar infrastructure. A staff of about 100 people will carry out the work via a floating drill rig, and part of the equipment will include an unmanned submarine on the seabed at the well’s opening.

The reservoir is owned by Noble Energy (36 percent), Delek subsidiaries Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration (15.625% each), Isramco (28.75%) and Dor Gas Exploration (4%).

Noble and the Delek Group subsidiaries also own the largest shares in the Leviathan reservoir, which is in the process of being developed.

Currently, natural gas accounts for 60% of Israel’s power supply, with 98% of that gas coming from Tamar through a single pipeline. The field only provides gas to Israel, while Leviathan is expected to mostly serve the export market.