US major Chevron has agreed to relinquish its right to veto gas sales deals from Israel’s 11tcf Tamar field from 1 July 2021. This follows months of wrangling between Chevron and local partner Delek Drilling on one side, and Israel’s state power firm IEC and the country’s competition authority on the other.

The field’s smaller partners (see charts 3 and 4) had accused operator Chevron (25%) and key local partner Delek Drilling (22%) of favoring sales from the larger 23tcf Leviathan field, which came online at the end of 2019 and in which they both have substantially larger stakes (Chevron 39.66%op, Delek 45.34%). Noble Energy (taken over by Chevron last October) and Delek had vetoed attempts by the smaller Tamar partners to strike sales deals at prices undercutting Leviathan (MEES, 24 April 2020). (CONTINUED - 1304 WORDS)