Wikipedia Deep Dive

Leviathan gas field

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A Biblical Monster Beneath the Waves

In December 2010, a drilling rig called the Homer Ferrington punched through five kilometers of rock and sediment beneath the Mediterranean Sea and struck something extraordinary. The engineers aboard weren't searching for mythological creatures, but what they found earned a name fit for one: Leviathan.

The Leviathan gas field, located about 130 kilometers west of Haifa in waters nearly a mile and a half deep, turned out to be one of the largest offshore natural gas discoveries in history. For Israel—a country that had spent its entire existence surrounded by oil-rich neighbors while possessing almost none itself—this was nothing short of transformational.

Here was a field containing an estimated 22 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. To put that in perspective, it's enough to meet all of Israel's domestic energy needs for forty years. A nation long dependent on energy imports suddenly found itself sitting atop a fortune in hydrocarbons.

The Unlikely Discoverers

Great discoveries sometimes come from great hubris, and sometimes from quiet persistence. Leviathan emerged from the latter.

A geologist named Eitan Aizenberg, co-founder of a small Israeli exploration company called Ratio, first identified the potential for natural gas at the site. But Ratio was tiny—far too small to drill in waters a mile deep. So Aizenberg brought in Delek, a larger Israeli firm, who then recruited Noble Energy, a Texas-based company with deep-water drilling experience.

The partnership had already developed a modest offshore field called Mari-B in southern Israeli waters. They knew how to work together. More importantly, Noble knew how to drill in conditions that would humble lesser operators.

In July 2010, Noble announced that seismic studies gave them a fifty-fifty chance of finding gas. Those aren't great odds for a $92.5 million drilling operation. But they rolled the dice anyway, and five months later, they announced their discovery.

What's Down There?

The Leviathan field sits in what geologists call the Levantine basin, a rich hydrocarbon region that stretches across the eastern Mediterranean. Understanding why natural gas accumulates here requires a brief detour into deep time.

Millions of years ago, organic matter—the remains of ancient marine life—settled on the seafloor and was buried under layers of sediment. Heat and pressure gradually transformed this material into hydrocarbons: oil and natural gas. These substances are lighter than the surrounding rock and water, so they migrate upward through porous rock layers until they hit an impermeable cap—a geological trap that holds them in place.

The gas at Leviathan was discovered in what's called the Tamar sands layer, a geological formation already known to contain hydrocarbons from nearby discoveries. But the engineers had reason to believe there might be more below—potentially including 600 million barrels of oil in unexplored deeper layers.

Getting to those deeper reserves meant drilling to 7,200 meters, or about 23,600 feet. That's nearly four and a half miles of rock and sediment, with crushing pressures and temperatures that can destroy drilling equipment. Noble tried twice to reach these depths and failed both times. The technical challenges proved insurmountable—at least for now. Still, during those attempts, they detected additional gas, suggesting the deeper reserves remain there, waiting for technology to catch up with ambition.

The Infrastructure of Extraction

Discovering gas is one thing. Getting it out of the ground and into people's homes is quite another.

The Leviathan production system represents a remarkable feat of engineering. Four wells, each reaching down through that mile and a half of water and then kilometers into the seabed, connect to the surface through what are called subsea tiebacks—essentially underwater pipelines. These 18-inch diameter pipes stretch 73 miles along the seafloor to a natural gas processing platform positioned about 10 kilometers offshore from a small coastal town called Dor.

The platform itself can process up to 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day—that's 12 billion cubic meters annually. But it was designed with expansion in mind, with the potential to nearly double that capacity to handle up to 2.4 billion cubic feet daily.

From the platform, pipelines carry the processed gas and condensate—a light liquid hydrocarbon that often accompanies natural gas—to an onshore reception facility at Dor. From there, the gas feeds into Israel's domestic pipeline network, eventually reaching power plants, industrial facilities, and homes across the country.

A Geopolitical Game-Changer

Energy has always shaped Middle Eastern politics. For decades, Israel's lack of domestic oil and gas reserves left it vulnerable and dependent. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Gulf states wielded their hydrocarbon wealth as both economic engine and diplomatic weapon.

Leviathan changed that equation.

When commercial production began on December 31, 2019—literally the last day of the decade—Israel became not just energy self-sufficient but a significant exporter. By 2024, a remarkable 90 percent of Leviathan's production was flowing not to Israeli consumers but to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.

This represents one of the more surprising diplomatic developments in recent Middle Eastern history. Israel, Egypt, and Jordan have complex relationships. Egypt and Israel fought four wars between 1948 and 1973. Jordan's relationship with Israel, while officially peaceful since 1994, remains politically fraught.

Yet here they are, bound together by pipelines and long-term contracts measured in the tens of billions of dollars.

The Egypt Connection

In February 2018, the partners in Leviathan signed a landmark agreement worth $15 billion over ten years to export natural gas to Egypt. The deal called for selling 3.5 billion cubic meters annually from Leviathan alone, with the total package valued at about $7.5 billion from that single field.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in a notable public statement, declared the project "has a lot of advantages for us Egyptians. And I want people to be reassured." That last phrase carried weight. In Egypt, any deal with Israel carries political sensitivity. The president was explicitly asking his population to accept energy interdependence with their former adversary.

Yossi Abu, then chief executive of Delek Drilling, cut to the strategic heart of the matter: "I think that the main thing is that Egypt is becoming the real gas hub of the region."

This observation illuminated the broader strategy. Egypt possesses liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals that can receive gas by pipeline, cool it to minus 162 degrees Celsius until it condenses into liquid form, and then ship it aboard specialized tankers to markets worldwide. Neither Israel nor its other neighbors had this capability. By connecting Leviathan to Egyptian infrastructure, Israeli gas could reach global markets without Israel having to build its own enormously expensive liquefaction facilities.

The relationship deepened further in August 2025, when Leviathan signed the largest export agreement in Israeli history—approximately $35 billion to supply gas to Egypt. The two countries' economies were becoming genuinely intertwined.

The Russian Angle

In October 2015, an unexpected player entered the scene. Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and agreed to allow major concessions for Gazprom—Russia's state-controlled gas giant—to participate in developing Leviathan.

This arrangement might seem counterintuitive. Russia is one of the world's largest natural gas producers, and Gazprom is a geopolitical instrument as much as a commercial enterprise. Why would Russia want to invest in a competitor's gas field?

The answer lies in understanding how major powers think about energy. Having a stake in Leviathan gives Russia insight into and influence over Eastern Mediterranean gas development. It potentially creates leverage over Israeli energy policy. And it positions Gazprom to participate in what could become a major new supply source for European markets—markets where Russia had been dominant but was beginning to face both competition and political resistance.

Ownership and Corporate Drama

The story of who owns Leviathan reads like a corporate thriller with plot twists and failed deals.

The field was the second-largest in the Mediterranean until August 2015, when the Italian energy company Eni discovered the Zohr field off the Egyptian coast—a massive find that relegated Leviathan to second place. Zohr sits just 6 kilometers from Cyprus's Block 11, a reminder of how geopolitically complex this corner of the Mediterranean has become.

As of recent reports, the ownership structure looks like this: Chevron Corporation operates the field with a 39.66 percent stake, having acquired Noble Energy in October 2020. Delek holds 22.67 percent, as does Avner Oil Exploration (a related entity). The original discoverer, Ratio Oil Exploration, retained 15 percent—a substantial reward for the small company that first identified the potential.

But getting to this stable ownership structure required navigating some dramatic near-misses. In February 2014, Australian energy company Woodside Energy agreed to buy 25 percent of Leviathan for up to $2.55 billion. It was a major vote of confidence from a sophisticated international player.

Then, just three months later, Woodside walked away.

The deal collapsed because the Leviathan partners had shifted their strategy from focusing on exports to Europe—which would have interested an Australian company looking for international growth—toward regional markets like Egypt and Jordan. This pivot made sense for the Israeli partners but didn't align with Woodside's strategic interests. A deal worth nearly $3 billion evaporated.

The Reserve Revision Controversy

How much gas does Leviathan actually contain? This seemingly straightforward question became contentious.

In the summer of 2014, Netherland, Sewell & Associates—a respected energy consulting firm known by its acronym NSAI—conducted a reserve assessment. They concluded the field contained what's called a "2P value" of 621 billion cubic meters. The 2P designation refers to "proved plus probable reserves," a standard industry metric representing the most likely estimate.

But in April 2015, Israel's Ministry of Energy revealed a problem. Other analyses submitted to the ministry indicated a best estimate of only 16.5 trillion cubic feet, or about 470 billion cubic meters. That's 24 percent less than NSAI's figure.

The ministry announced it was working with NSAI and the Leviathan partners to understand the discrepancy. Reserve estimates are not simple calculations—they involve assumptions about rock porosity, gas saturation, reservoir pressure, and recovery factors. Reasonable experts can disagree substantially.

For investors and policymakers, these differences matter enormously. A field with 621 billion cubic meters supports different commercial decisions than one with 470 billion. The disagreement highlighted the uncertainty inherent in extracting resources from deep beneath the seafloor.

The Lebanese Dispute

Not everyone celebrated Leviathan's discovery.

Shortly after the announcement in 2010, Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri made a pointed accusation: Israel was "ignoring the fact that according to the maps the deposit extends into Lebanese waters."

Israeli Minister of National Infrastructures Uzi Landau responded with characteristic bluntness: "We will not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect not only the rule of law but the international maritime law."

The exchange captured a fundamental challenge of offshore resource extraction. Unlike land borders, maritime boundaries are often contested, imprecisely defined, or simply never delineated because nobody cared until valuable resources were discovered beneath the waves.

In August 2010, Lebanon submitted its official position to the United Nations regarding the maritime border. Notably, this submission indicated that Lebanon considered both the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields to be outside Lebanese territory. However, Lebanon also indicated that other prospective fields in the region might lie within Lebanese waters—a claim that kept the dispute alive for other potential discoveries.

The United States expressed support for Lebanon's proposal regarding the maritime boundary. But the broader Israel-Lebanon relationship—shaped by decades of conflict, including Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon and Hezbollah's presence on Israel's northern border—meant that any resource-sharing arrangement remained politically impossible.

Looking Forward: Floating Terminals and Expanded Production

By late February 2023, the Leviathan partners announced a significant new investment: $51 million to prepare a floating liquefied natural gas terminal, plus an additional $45 million to expand production capacity.

This floating terminal represents a new phase in Leviathan's development. Rather than piping all gas to Egypt for liquefaction, Israel would gain its own capability to produce LNG and ship it directly to global markets. The terminal is expected to come online in the mid-to-late 2020s and could expand capacity to 6.5 billion cubic meters.

Yigal Landau, CEO of Ratio Energies, outlined the ambition: "The development plan will enable a significant increase in Leviathan's production to 21 billion cubic meters a year." That would nearly double current production levels.

For context, 21 billion cubic meters annually would be enough to heat several million European homes for a year. With European markets desperately seeking alternatives to Russian gas following the invasion of Ukraine, this expansion takes on geopolitical as well as commercial significance.

A Murky Turkish Connection

One odd thread in the Leviathan story involves a Dutch corporation called Inovo BV, owned by a Turkish businessman named Kamil Ekim Alptekin. Inovo claimed to be "the sole Turkish representative" of Ratio Oil Exploration.

Ratio flatly denied having any affiliation with Alptekin or Inovo BV.

However, BuzzFeed News investigated and produced evidence documenting a relationship dating back to at least early 2016. The discrepancy between Ratio's denial and the documentary evidence raises questions that have never been fully resolved.

Alptekin's name may ring bells for those who followed American political news. He was later convicted in the United States for acting as an unregistered agent of Turkey and making illegal campaign contributions. Whether his involvement with Ratio or Inovo had any significance beyond commercial interests remains unclear.

The Energy Triangle

Leviathan doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of an emerging energy geography in the eastern Mediterranean that geopolitical analysts sometimes call the "Energy Triangle" connecting Israel, Cyprus, and Greece.

Cyprus has its own offshore gas discoveries, including Block 12, a Cypriot field adjacent to Israel's Yishai gas field. Greece, while not a major producer, serves as a potential transit route for gas flowing to European markets. Together, these three countries—none of whom share a border but all of whom have found common cause in energy cooperation—have formed an increasingly important alliance.

This triangle exists in tension with Turkey, which has disputed Cypriot drilling rights and sought to assert its own claims to eastern Mediterranean resources. The presence of a potential Turkish connection to Leviathan's ownership structure, however murky, adds another layer of complexity to an already complicated regional picture.

What Leviathan Means

The biblical Leviathan was a sea monster, a creature of chaos that represented the untamable forces of nature. The gas field bearing its name has proven similarly disruptive—though in ways its namesake's creators never could have imagined.

For Israel, Leviathan delivered energy independence in a region where such independence had seemed impossible. For Egypt and Jordan, it provided a reliable supply of affordable natural gas bound by commercial contracts rather than political whims. For the broader Middle East, it created new economic interdependencies that cut across old enmities.

The field also demonstrated how resource discoveries can reshape geopolitics. Countries that might otherwise have little reason for cooperation found themselves negotiating billion-dollar deals. Russia inserted itself into a region where it had previously had limited influence. Lebanon and Israel found yet another issue to dispute. And a small Israeli exploration company—Ratio—saw its speculative investment transformed into a stake worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Whether Leviathan ultimately promotes regional stability through economic interdependence or creates new sources of conflict over resources and borders remains to be seen. The monster beneath the Mediterranean has been awakened. What it means for the decades ahead is still being written.