The Eastern Mediterranean Gas
Revolutionary technologies used to explore and produce oil and gas lying under deep Mediterranean waters have led to the discovery of hydrocarbons in volumes that, once commercially available, will reshape the energy map of the Middle East and, perhaps, Europe. A changed energy panorama will inevitably alter the geopolitical landscape, thus creating new opportunities and perils. Between 2010 and 2011, when oil prices hovered around $80 per barrel and the price outlook for the medium term was rosy, international energy companies engaged in an ambitious effort to find oil and gas in the Mediterranean Sea. And they did. In fact, their efforts yielded far better results than anyone had expected. In 2010, they discovered the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields in Israeli territorial waters. These fields have combined estimated reserves in the order of 17 trillion cubic feet of gas(tcf), a volume that would place them among the 30 largest gas fields in the world, larger - for example - than most