Units of Russia’s Gazprom and Pangea LNG B.V. have struck a tentative 20-year offtake agreement for the sale of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to be produced from a floating facility sourcing gas from the Tamar and Dalit fields offshore Israel. The terminal, if constructed, would be the world’s first project-financed floating LNG (FLNG) facility.

A final deal would be the first sale-purchase agreement from a FLNG project to a third-party independent buyer not involving a major international oil company, according to Pangea, whose Levant LNG unit would contract with Gazprom Marketing and Trading (GM&T) Switzerland AG.

Feed gas would be provided by Tamar Partnership, an upstream consortium that includes Noble Energy Mediterranean Ltd, Isramco Negev 2 LP, Delek Drilling LP, Avner Oil Exploration LP and DorGas Exploration LP, which are the owners and producers involved in the Tamar and Dalit fields.

Last November, Levant LNG executed a cost sharing agreement with Tamar Partners to develop a FLNG export terminal off the coast of Israel. A final investment decision on the project is expected by the end of the year. The project would be Israel’s first LNG export facility.

“Pangea LNG opens the potential for national oil companies and owners of small to medium size gas reserves to monetize stranded gas and take part in the value creation in the entire value chain,” said Pangea CEO Kathleen Eisbrenner.

Pangea LNG is a holding company with two major FLNG projects under development: the South Texas LNG Export Project on the Texas Gulf Coast (see Daily GPI, Dec. 20, 2012), which recently earned U.S. Department of Energy approval to export LNG to Free Trade Agreement (FTA) nations (see Daily GPI, Feb. 5), and awaits approval to export to non-FTA countries; and the Tamar Project, 60 miles off the coast of Israel in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

“We are confident that this deal will not only help strengthen and diversify Gazprom’s LNG portfolio, but also help GM&T Ltd. build on our success in the Asia-Pacific region, where we have recently closed long- and medium-term deals with numerous counterparties in India and North East Asia,” said GM&T Ltd. CEO Vitaly Vasiliev.

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