Project Profile
Value: US$105 million
Location: 3 kilometres from Mari-B platform, 25 km from the coast of Israel
Production: 150 million cubic feet of natural gas a day
Production Start-up Year: 2012
Pinnacles project is a gas project in the Mediterranean sea. The US$105 million Pinnacles project is located about three kilometres from Noble\'s Mari-B platform, which is 25 km from the coast and has been supplying Israel with most of its gas. Noble leads exploration groups that discovered Israel\'s huge Tamar and Leviathan fields in the eastern Mediterranean. A U.S-Israeli consortium began supplying Israel with natural gas from its offshore Pinnacles well on 13th June 2012 to help stave off a national energy shortage expected in summer 2012. Israel lost about 40 percent of its natural gas supplies in early 2011 when saboteurs in the Sinai peninsula began attacking the pipeline that carried gas to Israel from Egypt as part of a 20-year deal. In April 2012, Egypt officially terminated the deal.
Noble Energy, which leads the Pinnacles group, expects the field to supply Israel with 150 million cubic feet of gas per day almost a month ahead of schedule. The new supplies were planned to replace more expensive and dirtier fuels Israel has had to turn to, like diesel and fuel oil, and save the economy about US$170 million.
However, in 2013 due to a substantial rise in the rate of water flow in the course of producing gas from the well, the operator decided to close the well and to abandon it in 2014.
Operators:
Delek Drilling: Owns 25.5% interest
Noble Energy: Owns 47.1% interest
Avner Oil Exploration: 23% interest
Delek and Avner\'s parent, Delek Group: 4.4% interest