Noble Starts Gas Supply from New Field Off Israel

Noble Energy began on Wednesday to deliver natural gas from a new field off southern Israel in a bid to avoid electricity shortages due to a cut in Egyptian supplies, the company said.

"Noble Energy and its partners are making good on their promise to do everything possible to bring as much gas as possible to the Israeli market in the absence of gas delivery from Egypt," it said in a statement.

"Today, gas will begin flowing from the Pinnacles well, almost one month earlier than scheduled."

Pinnacles is located near from the Mari-B platform, also operated by the U.S. energy and gas giant, that sits over the Yam Tethys reserve.

Noble Energy had drilled Pinnacles and another well, Noa, to connect to the Yam Tethys, which was depleting faster than expected due to overpumping since the slide in Egyptian supplies.

Israel currently generates 40 percent of its electricity from natural gas and until last year, Egypt provided 43 percent of its gas supplies.

But that supply has been regularly disrupted since an uprising overthrew former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, raising fears of electricity shortages in the Jewish state.

Noble said Pinnacles is expected to supply 150 million cubic feet (4.24 million cubic meters) of natural gas a day, "which will provide fuel gas savings to Israel of 650 million shekels ($167 million, 134 million euros) this summer alone."

"Though limited in resource size, this well will provide much-needed gas production rate just in time for the hot summer months," it said.

Noble's vice president for the Eastern Mediterranean, Lawson Freeman, said: "With time of the essence, Noble was able to utilize rigs from our Mediterranean drilling program and deploy subsea equipment from our other global projects.

"We are also pushing hard to accelerate the Noa development in the same way."

The disruptions in gas supply have forced Israel's electrical stations to use coal and diesel fuel, both of which are more expensive, and has prompted the government to consider raising electricity prices by as much as 20 percent.

In the absence of Egyptian gas, Israel has been pushing for the speedy exploitation of several recently-discovered gas fields off its northern coast.

It has also signed a deal with Cyprus to mark out maritime borders, but Israel faces challenges from Lebanon which claims the gas fields lie in its territorial waters.