Delek Clarifies Issue at Israel's Leviathan Field
Israel's Delek Drilling reported on February 16 that a minor tremor was behind the decision to limit production at the offshore Leviathan field, launched in January.
The Israeli energy ministry reported on February 13 that production at the field had been capped at 60% following a malfunction at a subsea pipeline. Delek clarified saying a minor tremor had been discovered in a 30-metre section of pipe connecting each wellhead to the seabed pipeline. The project's operator Noble Energy responded by restricting output in order examine the seismic event.
"Thus far, one out of four production wells have been examined with no irregular findings, and therefore the production capacity from this well was increased, concurrently with the continued inspections of the other wells," Delek said.
Leviathan's four wells are capable of producing up to 400mn ft3/day of gas each, but Delek noted that total production had been limited to 700-850mn ft3/day anyway under the field's initial period of operation. The goal is to ramp up production to around 1.2bn ft3/day by summer, the company said.