Thread by @MonaSukkarieh

Should borders be defined based on the presence (or not) of prospects?
The question should be raised because in the debate on the 🇱🇧/🇮🇱 maritime border dispute, some people appear to be equating gas fields with prospects.

#Karish for example is a gas field. Its presence has been established following drilling activity in 2013. It is being developed and if everything goes as planned, production is expected in Q3 2022.

#Qana is a prospect. A prospect is an area of interest, but the presence of a gas field there has not been established. Only drilling can confirm the presence of a field and no drilling was conducted at Qana. On average, only 1 in 5 wells leads to a commercial discovery.

Given the uncertainty, should borders be defined based on the presence of prospects?
For Lebanon, the question is important because cross-border deposits raise the issue of joint development, which is rejected (with Israel) because it is assimilated to a form of normalization.

That is why Lebanon wants to secure the entire #Qana prospect within its border.
But is Qana the only prospect along the Lebanese-Israeli maritime border? We don’t know because we don’t have enough data.

Unlike the rest of the Lebanese EEZ, the border area isn’t extensively covered by #3D_surveys.
Notice how the #Qana prospect happens to be located in the only spot on the border covered by 3D surveys. If we extend the coverage, will we find additional prospects? It’s possible.

That is why I’ve always been skeptical about equating gas fields and prospects in negotiations, and about defining a border based on a single prospect in the absence of sufficient data.