Israel Plans Offshore Gas Field Defense from Lebanon

The Israeli navy is to present a plan for the defense of offshore gas fields that hold the prospect of greatly reducing the Jewish state's energy dependency, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported Sunday.

Citing a senior military official, the newspaper said that the plan, which will require government approval, will have an initial price-tag of $40-70 million and will be presented at the end of the month.

The plan covers an area of sea about 1.5 times the size of Israel, the newspaper said, extending far out into the Mediterranean.

Israel says the gas fields all lie in its waters, but Lebanon which remains technically at a state of war with the Jewish state, says one of them lies partly on its side of their un-demarcated maritime border.

The Tamar field, which Lebanon contests, holds reserves of natural gas estimated at 8.4 trillion cubic feet (238 billion cubic meters), while the Leviathan field is thought to hold twice that, around 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters).

The fields could be large enough to cover around 70 percent of Israel's electricity usage, and also allow the Jewish state to become an energy exporter.

A military spokesman questioned by Agence France Presse declined to confirm or deny a defense plan for the gas fields.