The Ministry of Energy announced on November 4, 2018 the launching of its 2^nd offshore Bidding Round (OBR2) for natural gas and oil exploration licenses offshore Israel. OBR2 builds upon the growing regional importance of the East Mediterranean as a hydrocarbon province, the progress made with the development of the giant Tamar and Leviathan fields, as well as the Karish and Tanin fields offshore Israel, and the rapidly improving options for monetizing gas produced both domestically and via export.

In OBR2 the Ministry implemented lessons learned from OBR1, which was completed in November 2017. The offered area is comprised of 5 zones located in the southern extent of Israel's EEZ, an area well covered by 2-D and 3-D seismic surveys and other data. Bids will be accepted for all 5 zones, each of them including several blocks totaling up to 1,600 km² in size. The working period for the zones may be extended up to 7 years and includes two Drill-or-Drop decision points after 3 and 5 years. Comprehensive data package is offered including the entire, existing 3D seismic coverage of the Bidding area.      

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​The area offered for bidding in OBR2 includes 5 Zones (A to E) located south of the large gas fields presently being developed offshore Israel. Zones A, B, C and D includes 4 blocks while Zone E includes only 3.  Bidding and work programs will be accepted for entire zones, however, individual licenses within the zones will be granted, in compliance with the Israeli Petroleum Law.  Most of the area offered for bidding was held in the past by various operators that acquired seismic data and developed exploration prospects which have not been drilled.  This information is included within the Data package of OBR2.

For additional unique data please register here. 

To download the bid round documents in PDF format, please click here​. ​To receive the bid round documents in MS Word format, one should register for the additional data page here. ​

Note the following activities that are included in the bid process:

A pre-qualification stage will be opened from March 28, 2019, allowing interested parties to be pre-qualified prior to the final submission of bid documents. The terms for pre-qualification are described within the bid documents. The Ministry asks parties interested to participate in OBR2 to submit a Letter of Interest, to be submitted until March 28, 2019. The LOI form is included in the bid documents. The Ministry may conduct a Bidders gathering in Israel prior to the closing date.  

For more information please Contact Us.

Bid Timeframe

For a license sample in Hebrew please click here​. a nonbinding, unofficial translation into English is included in the bid round documents (Schedule 6).

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To submit questions as per the competitive process, one has to be registered for the additional data page​, and submit the questions using the designated format which appears at the end of the bid documents in MS Word format which is also available on the additional data page, for those registered. 

For the Ministry's answers and clarifications to the questions submitted so far, please click here.