US firm Noble Energy and its Israeli partner Delek are advancing plans to raise output capacity from their 10 tcf Tamar field offshore Israel – the country’s only current producer.

Output has yet to trouble the current 1.1bn cfd capacity figure – it hit a quarterly record of 925mn cfd in Q3 last year and a Q1 record of 700mn cfd this year (with no export outlet, production is limited by state power firm IEC’s offtake which is highly seasonal with a Q3 peak and Q2 low). But IEC has plans to raise the share of gas – and for gas read Tamar – in its generation mix from the current 50% (coal 48%, renewables 2%) to 60% at the expense of coal, all of which is imported. (CONTINUED - 876 WORDS)