Israel until very recently was an energy-dependent country with most of its energy supplies being imported from other international countries. But recently, with the discovery of huge natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea, Israel’s status has changed to an Energy Surplus country, with huge potential to start exporting natural gas to the international markets of the world. All this has become possible only because of the discovery of natural gas. In this article, we will take a look at the natural gas fields of Israel and their significance in ensuring that Israel becomes energy-independent.

Before the discovery of its natural gas resources, Israel was dependent on coal from Russia and other nations to meet its energy needs. Burning coal is not an eco-friendly way to generate power, but Israel had no other alternative for a long time. But when the world shifted to natural gas as an alternative means of generating electricity and for use as an energy source, there was a better alternative for Israel and they shifted to using natural gas. The problem here was that Israel did not have any natural gas of its own, and had to import huge amounts of natural gas to meet its energy needs – at some points, up to 90% of its energy needs were being met by imported natural gas.

All of this changed with the discovery of natural gas in the Levant Basin of the Mediterranean Sea. This basin is shared by all the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, with Israel receiving a significant portion of the reserves. Israel’s portion of the natural gas finds lies mostly in two huge gas fields, namely the Leviathan Gas Field and the Tamar Gas Field with other significantly smaller gas fields also being there – these fields bring significant amounts of hope for Israel natural gas industry.

The Leviathan gas field is located at a distance of 81 miles from the Israeli town of Haifa, at a depth of around 5000 feet below the Mediterranean Sea – making it one of the deepest finds of natural gas in the entire world. The number of gas reserves that are estimated to be in the Leviathan gas field is somewhere between 400 to 450 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

The other significant gas field discovery is that of the Tamar gas field. This is a gas field that is also located on the Mediterranean Sea, at a distance of around 50 miles west from Haifa, at a depth of around 5500 feet. The reserves in this natural gas field are estimated at around 150 to 200 billion cubic meters along with some portion of crude oil also being available. Tamar gas is the first gas field to be detected in the Levant Basin making the entire area around the basin containing gas to be known as the Tamar sands.