Why Lebanon is failing to develop its Oil & Gas Potentials
1. The local Government has elected members of its Petroleum Administration (LPA) based on Sectarianism and not expertise;
2. The government has ignored the advise by many Oil & Gas professionals to establish its National Oil Company, one of the industry main fundamentals and the only viable instrument to manage the Oil & Gas Operation;
3. On behalf of the government, the LPA has chosen the business model (Profit Oil) which is and will work against Lebanon's best interest and the interest of its citizens;
4. The LPA did not listen to the request by many Oil & Gas Experts to increase the number of Blocks Offshore for, if the number of Blocks is increased to 16 instead of 10:
- Lebanon could have avoided the complains by Israel on Blocks 8 & 9;
- Lebanon could have had more offers by the Oil Companies, than just one offer by the Consortia (TOTAL, ENI and Novatek);
- Lebanon could have the opportunity to train its Oil & Gas University graduates and to employ its indigenous people.
5. The Government of Lebanon is not willing to work with independent Advisory Committee to offer a solution on the dispute with Israel.
Why the increase in number of Blocks Offshore would be more lucrative to Lebanon!
More Blocks means:
- More International Oil Companies (IOCs) to operate and, therefore, invest in Lebanon
- Increase in the Revenues to Lebanon
- Employ more indigenous personnel
- Allow for competition which will translate to better technology used by the IOCs to improve Oil & Gas production
- Prolong the continuity of Oil & Gas production in Lebanon.
- Give ways to better understand the Geological Settings and would help maximize the HydroCarbon potentials.
Solution: One way is to partition the Offshore to 16 Blocks. Carefully award 10 of them to International Oil Companies (IOCs) over time: Four (4) Blocks to IOCs in year 2014, two (2) Blocks in 2015, and four (4) Blocks in 2016. The remaining six (6) Blocks would be retained by the government of Lebanon and possibly be explored by its National Oil Company. For a copy of the map on the suggested 16 Blocks, based on Geo-Science as defined by our Senior Exploration Petroleum Geologists, please contact: fuad@petroservint.com
Lebanon's Oil & Gas
The Objective Functionality (NOC) vs. The Subjective Phenomenology (LPA)
The ALTERNATIVE to the LPA's Production Sharing Agreement based on its illusive "Profit Oil" Model
Click HERE
Foundation of the Oil & Gas Industry
Six main pillars to the foundation of an Oil & Gas Industry in any country, why not in Lebanon?
The assessment and research study on this subject are done in-house, at PetroServ, and have been the result of due diligence in the process vested to help Lebanon be on track to make the leap into our industry. Our effort has been productive and it is our conviction now that the commencement and continuity of the Petroleum industry in Lebanon would need to be developed and based on:
- The unquestionable commitment by the country's Leadership.
- Petroleum Ministry to be governed by carefully selected individuals.
- Establish Sovereign and Independent National Oil & Gas Company (NOC) and be managed by professionals.
- Highly qualified staff (not necessarily based on sectarianism) to form the Petroleum Directorate (or PA).
- Public awareness to introduce the Oil & Gas Culture.
- Political stability and Security to encourage international companies invest in Lebanon, for years to come.
However, despite the progress by the present Energy & Water Ministry to attain a commanding but unfinished volume of Seismic Data, it is still unfortunate to say that the basic six pillars (to establish the industry) are missing and that are required to move forward with the first bidding-round on the 10 (or maybe 20) Blocks Offshore Lebanon. Consequently, the country is not ready or even mature to engage in the Exploration and Drilling Deep Ocean Wildcat(s) that are costly and highly complex!
