The Leviathan gas platform has set sail from Corpus Christi, Texas, in the Gulf of Mexico to Israel, partners in the project said on 14 July.
The first of four barges transporting the production structure units has left Texas and the other three will set sail in the coming weeks, reported Reuters. In September, all the units will be installed on the jacket of the platform already in place 10 km from Israel's northern Mediterranean shore.
Milestones met in the first quarter 2019 included jacket and pile installation, production manifold installation, and completion of pipeline installation. The project remains on budget and on schedule for first production by the end of 2019, Noble Energy said.
Leviathan, with 22 Tcf of gross recoverable reserves, was discovered in 2010. The reservoir is one of the world’s largest deepwater gas discoveries of the past decade, and the largest natural gas reservoir in the Levant basin. The Leviathan Partnership—Noble Energy, Delek Drilling LP, and Ratio Oil Exploration (1992) LP—invested $3.75 billion in development of the field.
The initial development plan includes four subsea wells, each capable of flowing more than 300 MMcf/D of natural gas. Production will be gathered at the field and delivered via two 115-km flowlines to a fixed platform, with full processing capabilities of 1.2 Bcf/D. Processed gas will connect to the Israel Natural Gas Lines Ltd. onshore transmission network in the northern part of the country, and to regional markets via onshore export pipelines.