April 2019, Vol. 246, No. 4
Global News
Lebanon Warns Against Using Disputed Territory for East Med Pipeline
Lebanon warned its Mediterranean neighbors in March that a planned East Med gas pipeline from Israel to the European Union must not be allowed to violate its maritime borders.
Israel is hoping to enlist several European countries in the construction of a 1,243-mile (2,000-km) pipeline linking vast eastern Mediterranean gas resources to Europe through Cyprus, Greece and Italy at a cost of $7 billion.
Beirut has an unresolved maritime border dispute with Israel, which it regards as an enemy country, over a sea area of about 330 square miles extending along the edge of three of Lebanon’s southern energy blocks.
Lebanon last year licensed a consortium of Italy’s Eni, France’s Total and Russia’s Novatek to carry out the country’s first offshore energy exploration in two blocks. One of the blocks, Block 9, contains waters disputed with Israel.
A number of big gas fields have been discovered in the eastern Mediterranean Levant Basin since 2009. However, the region lacks significant oil and gas infrastructure and political relations between the countries are strained on a number of fronts.
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