Leviathan gas field is a major breakthrough for Israel and it’s interesting to see how things are progressing when it comes to actual removal of fuels out from inside the earth.
In this regard, Delek Drilling of Israel and its US partner told that their rig for the Leviathan gas field has reached the first stage of a huge project that will rid Israel from coal usage and transform its economy by making it an energy exporter.
The foundation named the platform jacket, is being installed around 6 miles (10km) off the Mediterranean coast of Israel. It came on a 590-foot (180 meters) long barge that sailed across the Atlantic Ocean along Texas for a month. It is almost 322 feet (98 meters) high and weighs 15,500 tons, and took 18 months to construct. It was built in Texas. The barge which carried the platform jacket traveled for 28 days across the Atlantic Ocean to reach its destination.
The platform’s topside was expected to arrive in the months following January this year and natural gas from Leviathan field is expected to be running across Israel by the end of the year.
The Leviathan gas field is supposed to be the biggest natural treasure for Israel and the arrival of the platform jacket signifies Israel’s entry into the last stage of the development of the Leviathan gas field.
The platform jacket has been designed to support the huge offshore oil platform’s topsides and deck to keep heavy equipment as well as facilities above the water.
Leviathan is considered to be a great revolution- it is expected to supply clean energy, replacing the coal and can save billions of Shekels to the country.
It’s planned to sell the surplus gas to Egypt and Jordan.
Leviathan was explored in 2010 and is situated around 80 miles (125 kilometers) west of Israeli harbor city of Haifa. It’s estimated to have 535 billion cubic meters (18.9 trillion cubic feet) natural gas together with 34.1 million barrels of condensate.
The said platform jacket will be attached to the sea bed and the topside that will arrive soon will be fitted to it.
Once this is done, the platform will get the gas from the field via a couple of underwater pipelines, process it and send it through another pipeline to the Israeli gas transmission unit.