Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz announced on Tuesday that Israel has approved the sale of exploitation rights in the Karish and Tanin natural-gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean by an American-Israeli consortium to the Greek firm Energean for $150 million. The two fields are estimated to hold 60 billion cubic metres of gas.
The sale is part of a government move to avoid a monopoly situation in the natural gas sector. US firm Noble Energy and Israel's Delek group already control two much larger fields. Steinitz told Kol Yisrael government radio total production from the four fields would bring in $92 billion dollars, or "more than all the US aid granted over the years to Israel."