"The largest infrastructure project in Israeli history is moving ahead on schedule," announced the Tamar natural gas field partners - Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL), Delek Group Ltd. (TASE: DLEKG) units Avner Oil and Gas LP (TASE: AVNR.L) and Delek Drilling LP (TASE: DEDR.L), Isramco Ltd. (Nasdaq: ISRL; TASE: ISRA.L), and Alon Natural Gas Exploration Ltd. (TASE: ALGS) - in a press release today that the field's production platform was en route to Israel. The platform has left the Keiwit Shipyards in Corpus Christi, Texas, after 18 months of construction, and will arrive in Israel during the fourth quarter on board the largest barge of its kind.
Production at the Tamar field is scheduled to begin in March 2013, and will supply natural gas to the Israeli economy for decades. The production platform is 290 meters high, taller than Israel's tallest skyscraper, the Moshe Aviv Tower, which is 244 meters high. The deepwater platform and its legs weighs 34,000 tons. The platform will have a crew of 20 person at any given moment, 85% of whom will be Israelis.
Gas from the Tamar platform, located 90 kilometers west of Haifa, will flow via a 16-inch pipeline 150 kilometers south to the Mari B platform, 24 kilometers west of Ashkelon, and then to the gas terminal onshore. The link-up will, for the first time in Israel's history, give the country energy independence, saving billions of shekels a year, and will lower electricity rates over time as production switches to natural gas.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 3, 2012
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