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Shami stresses Lebanon's full rights over offshore oil wealth

05 January 2011

BEIRUT: Foreign Minister Ali Shami stressed Tuesday Lebanon’s right to exploit its entire oil resources in its offshore economic zone in a letter he addressed to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

Shami urged Ban to prevent Israel from exploiting Lebanon’s oil resources amid reports the Jewish state seeks to conduct off-shore drilling for oil and gas in the Mediterranean, some of which might fall in Lebanese territorial waters.

In the letter, Shami asked Ban to “exert every possible effort to prevent Israel from exploiting Lebanon’s oil and maritime resources in its offshore exclusive economic zone.”

Shami highlighted Lebanon’s right to exploit its entire oil resources in its offshore economic zone in line with its legal rights accorded by international rules and conventions.

“Any exploitation by Israel of these resources constitutes a severe violation of these international rules and conventions and to Lebanese sovereignty.”

The letter said that Lebanon’s offshore economic zone was identified in maps and coordinates that the Foreign Ministry had sent to the UN General Secretariat in 2010. The Noble Energy Company announced last week that the Leviathan gas field, which is located offshore near the city of Haifa in north Israel, holds an estimated 450 billion cubic meters of natural gas, positioning the country as a natural gas exporter.

“Leviathan is the latest major discovery for Noble Energy and is easily the largest exploration discovery in our history,” the firm’s chairman Charles Davidson said in a statement.

Media reports said Israel has signed contracts with a number of private firms that would explore for oil wells in the Mediterranean, according to the state-run National News Agency.

According to energy and privatization expert Roudi Baroudi, who spoke to The Daily Star, the Leviathan gas field might be straddling Lebanon’s maritime borders with Israel.

Meanwhile, Minister of State Adnan Qassar said that studies have confirmed the presence of oil and gas wells in Lebanese territorial waters that have a “much larger storage [amount] than those discovered by Israel in Haifa.”

“Passing the oil drilling law in Parliament is not enough. More practical steps are needed to help us in extracting natural gas from our territorial waters as soon as possible,” Qassar said in a statement. “While the Israeli enemy has put forward complete plans to start extracting oil and natural gas from the Mediterranean directly on our borders, we have done nothing in this regard so far,” he added.

Qassar said political disputes should not prevent Lebanon from protecting and exploiting its natural resources. He urged all Lebanese political factions to “take a national and responsible stance by preparing and issuing the applied decrees of the oil law, given the importance of this wealth on the national level in general, and the economic one in particular.”

“Lebanon is in desperate need for such natural resources to reduce debt which constitutes a heavy burden on the national economy,” he said. Qassar said that if Lebanon wisely exploited its oil and gas resources, the country would wipe out its debt, achieve economic growth and have a surplus of money. – The Daily Star

© Copyright The Daily Star 2011.