Chevron Resumes Natural Gas Production In Offshore Israeli Field After Five-Week Pause

Chevron resumed operations at the Tamar field, a key offshore natural gas facility, after receiving authorization from the Israeli government.

"We have resumed supplying customers in Israel and in the region from the Tamar Production Platform," Chevron said in a statement Monday.

Chevron's offshore platform, which is located 12 miles away from Gaza in the Mediterranean Sea, was ordered to pause production on October 9 by Israel's Ministry of Energy, two days after the Hamas attack to the country.

The Tamar field, one of Israel's three active offshore natural gas facilities, was responsible for 70% of the energy supply for nation's total electricity generation in 2022.

The resumption of production in the Tamar field immediately translated into increased flows of natural gas from Israel to Egypt. A Bloomberg report published Monday found that inflows of rose to 350-450 million cubic feet per day, up from around 250 million earlier this month.

The current rate of imports is still around 50% below pre-Israel-Hamas war levels. Egypt imported approximately 800 million cubic meters per day of Israeli natural gas before October 7.

Egypt, which recently faced supply shortages, remains bound to a memorandum of understanding signed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine to export Israeli liquefied natural gas to European markets.