Final approval has been granted for the transfer of interests in the Tamar and Dalit production leases from Delek Drilling to two subsidiaries of Abu Dhabi company Mubadala Petroleum: Tamar Investment 1 RSC Limited and Tamar Investment 2 RSC Limited.
The transfer of interests was completed after the closing conditions for the transaction were completed and it was approved by the Petroleum Commissioner and recorded in the Petroleum Registry under the Petroleum Law. Mubadala Petroleum is part of Abu Dhabi's national investment company, which manages assets worth about $230 billion.
To date, Delek Drilling has held 22% of the Tamar and Dalit leases. The request approved was to transfer 11% of the two leases together to each one of the two companies. The request for the transfer of the interests also includes a request for approval of an option for a secondary transaction, which includes a transfer of 100% of the shares of one of the companies.
This step of transfer of ownership and exit of the Delek Group from the holding in the Tamar reservoir, in fact completes the natural gas framework, a framework which allowed Israel to develop the natural gas reservoirs Leviathan and Karish while breaking up the monopoly, improved Israel's geopolitical status through export agreements to Egypt and Jordan, created competition in the natural gas sector, and resulted in the price of natural gas in Israel being significantly lower than the price at which natural gas was sold before the framework, certainly in relation to the high prices paid by European countries.
The natural gas framework that has ended this year has achieved its goals in that, with the expected connection of the Karish reservoir during 2022, Israel will have three separate natural gas reservoirs connected to the local market through three separate and independent production systems. The Israeli market is thus guaranteed energy independence, significant redundancy over and above the annual consumption, dramatic reduction of the use of more polluting fuels, such as coal and diesel, and the possibility of exporting natural gas to neighboring countries.
The Ministry of Energy explains that the entry of Mubadala Petroleum into the natural gas sector will contribute to the activity of the leases and open a door to collaboration with companies that in the past avoided operating in Israel for geopolitical reasons. According to the company's representatives, it also intends to open a local branch in Israel, and expand its activities in the field of energy, including in the field of renewable energy as well as in other fields of industry and innovation.