The Leviathan Field - Nine Years Since Discovery and Nearing First Gas

Abstract

Summary Leviathan is a giant natural gas field located ∼130km west of the Israeli port city of Haifa, in water depths of ∼1,700m, and discovered in late 2010 by a venture consisting of Noble Energy (Operator), Delek Drilling and Ratio Oil Exploration. With over 33 trillion cubic feet of natural gas resources in place (over 21 Tcf recoverable), it is the largest natural gas field discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean and one of the largest deep-water natural gas discoveries in the world. Here we provide a brief geological overview of the basin and play, and then focus on the properties and architecture of the Leviathan gas field, based on a comprehensive database, comprising of seismic, well logs, lab data, and flow tests. The Leviathan gas field is expected to come on line by the end of 2019, with a 1.2 billion cubic feet per day capacity, supported by four high rate sub-sea wells, tied back to a fixed leg processing platform. Leviathan’s future lies in expanding the throughput of the gas field, and potentially in deeper units where several prospective targets, assumed to be of Mesozoic age, were identified in association with a large deep-rooted paleo-high.