Tamar Gas Field

Tamar occupies approximately 100 square kilometers within the roughly 250-square-kilometer Tamar Lease in the Levantine Basin.[1] The reservoir lies beneath waters approximately 1,600–1,700 meters deep, about 90 kilometers west of Haifa.[1] Its offshore production system connects this northern deepwater location with processing and reception infrastructure near Israel’s southern Mediterranean coast, rather than bringing the gas directly ashore near Haifa.[1]

The field was the first in a series of large-scale natural-gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean and began production in 2013.[4] Its significance extends beyond the size of the underground resource: Tamar supplied a large share of Israel’s gas during the years following its development, helped replace oil- and coal-based electricity generation, and became a source of supply for neighboring countries.[4][6] In 2018, it supplied approximately 10.46 billion cubic meters, equivalent to 94 percent of Israel’s total natural-gas supply that year.[7]

The reservoir and its processing platform are separate locations.[1] Gas travels south from the subsea wells through long offshore pipelines to a fixed platform approximately 25 kilometers offshore, then proceeds to the Ashdod Onshore Terminal and Israel’s natural-gas transmission system.[1] Contemporary descriptions place the platform near the older Mari-B development offshore from Ashkelon, while other reporting describes it as west of Ashdod.[1][8] These descriptions concern the southern processing installation, not the reservoir west of Haifa.[1][8]

Chevron operates the field, whose ownership has included Israeli companies and investors from the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.[2][3] The combination of domestic power supply, cross-border sales, and foreign investment has made Tamar both an Israeli energy asset and a component of regional commercial relationships.[2][3][9] Its operational history also includes security-related interruptions, most notably the shutdown ordered during the October 2023 war and the authorization to restart production the following month.[10]

Exploration of the Tamar prospect began in 2001 through a partnership that included Israeli entrepreneurs and British Gas.[11] Work was discontinued after several years because of high costs and uncertainty about whether the prospect contained commercially viable quantities of gas.[11] Exploration resumed in 2007 under a new partnership, and drilling ultimately reached nearly 5,000 meters below sea level before commercial quantities of gas were found in January 2009.[11]

Geologist Yossi, or Joseph, Langotsky identified the prospect’s early potential, and the field was named after his granddaughter Tamar.[1][11] Tamar-1, the first well, was drilled in 2008; the discovery was reported in 2009.[1] Houston-based Noble Energy was identified as the discoverer in congressional testimony, while the later operating company Chevron Mediterranean Limited was formerly known as Noble Energy Mediterranean.[1][12]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs places the discovery on January 17, 2009, describing a Noble Energy-led team drilling in the Matan license through rock and salt beneath about 1,700 meters of water before striking and flaring methane.[13] The early discovery announcement concerned the Tamar 1 drilling site, approximately 90 kilometers west of the Haifa shoreline.[14] At that stage, the gas was estimated to amount to at least three times the quantities previously found at Yam Thetis offshore from Ashkelon and Ashdod, with a reported value of approximately $15 billion; examination of the site’s potential was still continuing.[14]

The announcement immediately attracted attention at the government level.[14] Minister of Infrastructures Binyamin Ben Eliezer told the government: “We are witnesses to an historic as well as formative moment for the Israeli energy market.”[14] Before production began, Noble Energy projected that Tamar could reach a maximum capacity of one billion cubic feet per day by 2013 or 2014.[15] That forecast was more than three times Israel’s 2009 gas-consumption rate of 0.31 billion cubic feet per day, although it was a company projection rather than an actual production result.[15]

Development required more than four years of drilling and pipeline work before gas reached the Israeli market.[11] Five production wells, Tamar-2 through Tamar-6, entered production in 2013.[1] Gas began flowing on March 30, 2013.[11] It traveled south through a 150-kilometer subsea connection to the production platform and then through infrastructure associated with Yam Tethys to the onshore receiving terminal at Ashdod.[16] At the launch, the five subsea wells were described as individually capable of delivering 250 million cubic feet per day, while their combined actual flow at the time was approximately 300 million cubic feet per day.[16]

The start of production came during a period of reduced gas availability in Israel.[11] Imports from Egypt had stopped in 2011, and the nearby Yam Tethys field had been depleted.[11] Tamar’s gas was intended for electricity generation at Israel Electric Corporation facilities, private power stations, and smaller industrial power stations.[11] Initial reporting described the gas passing through subsea pipelines to a newly built offshore facility before transfer to an Ashdod processing plant and the Israeli market.[17]

Additional wells expanded the producing system after the original development.[1] Tamar-8 was drilled in 2016 and began producing in 2017.[1] Tamar SW-1 was drilled in 2013 but was completed and brought into production in 2023.[1] The environmental assessment published in October 2025 listed six producing wells—Tamar-2, Tamar-4, Tamar-5, Tamar-6, Tamar-8, and Tamar SW-1—and identified Tamar-3 as not producing at that time.[1]

Cross-border deliveries to Jordan began in January 2017, when Tamar gas started flowing through a border crossing near the southern end of the Dead Sea.[18] The initial customers were a bromine plant and a potash factory, and the quantities were relatively small.[18] The agreement received little public emphasis in Jordan at the time.[18] A larger regional commercial development followed in February 2018, when Noble Energy, Delek Drilling, and their partners announced agreements with Egypt’s Dolphinus Holdings for 64 billion cubic meters from Tamar and Leviathan over the following ten years.[3] Israeli gas began flowing to Egypt in January 2020, although the reported aggregate deliveries were not divided between the two fields.[3]

Ownership changed substantially in 2021, when the United Arab Emirates’ Mubadala sovereign wealth fund completed the purchase of a 22 percent stake from Delek Drilling for $1.025 billion.[9] The sale was required under an Israeli government effort to increase competition in the power sector.[9] At the time, Chevron held 25 percent, and the remaining majority was described as belonging to other Israeli companies.[9] A 2025 report subsequently announced Azerbaijan’s state-owned SOCAR’s agreement to acquire a 10 percent stake from Israeli businessman Aaron Frenkel; the purchase was finalized in July 2025.[3][19] The later ownership listing retained Chevron at 25 percent and put Mubadala’s share at 11 percent.[3]

Following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Ministry of Energy ordered Tamar’s operator to halt production.[10] Operations stopped on October 9 amid security concerns about running an offshore installation during the fighting, including rocket fire from Gaza.[20][21] On November 9, the ministry instructed Chevron to resume production, with restarting expected to take several days.[10][20] The interruption particularly affected exports to Egypt, while other gas infrastructure reduced the impact on domestic supply.[10]

A further expansion reached completion in June 2026, when Chevron and its partners finished the Tamar Optimization Project.[5] The project added a new 150-kilometer pipeline between the reservoir and platform and reinstated three booster gas compressors at the Ashdod Onshore Terminal.[5] Reported technical production capability rose from 1.1 billion to 1.6 billion cubic feet per day.[5] The expansion was completed during the 2026 war with Iran, when ministry instructions had stopped Leviathan and Karish production for more than a month and Tamar was the only field producing gas.[22]

Tamar’s early production was used predominantly by Israel’s electric-power sector, replacing both oil- and coal-based generation.[6] National natural-gas consumption reached 5.10 billion cubic meters in 2013, nearly 40 percent above its previous peak in 2010, and domestic production supplied 89 percent of consumption that year.[6] These figures describe the Israeli market during Tamar’s entry into production, rather than the field’s individual output.[6] Production from Tamar was also associated with a reported 0.8 percent boost to Israel’s gross domestic product in 2013 and a 0.3 percent boost in 2014.[23]

By 2016, natural gas supplied almost 30 percent of Israel’s fuel consumption, compared with 11 percent in 2008, and accounted for more than half of electricity production.[4] Tamar’s development was central to that increased use, but it also created a concentration of supply: the 2016 account described all domestically consumed Israeli gas as coming through a single pipeline in the Tamar field.[4] Development of the separate Leviathan field was presented as a means of diversifying domestic supply.[4] This single-pipeline description applies to the historical system of that period, not to the later infrastructure configuration.[4]

The field supplied approximately 10.46 billion cubic meters in 2018, when it accounted for 94 percent of national natural-gas supply.[7] In 2022, Tamar produced 10.2 billion cubic meters, compared with 11.4 billion from Leviathan, within total Israeli production of 21.92 billion cubic meters.[2] Approximately 85 percent of Tamar’s production that year went to the domestic market.[24] Its importance to the principal electricity utility was especially pronounced: Tamar supplied 57 percent of Israel Electric Corporation’s fuels in 2022.[20]

Nationally, Israel consumed 12.71 billion cubic meters of gas in 2022, mainly in the power sector, and exported 9.21 billion cubic meters.[2] Egypt received 63 percent of Israeli gas exports, with Jordan receiving the remaining 37 percent.[2] Those export shares apply to Israel’s combined gas trade and do not specify Tamar’s own allocation between the two countries.[2] Tamar’s export connections nevertheless included both Jordanian industrial facilities and Egypt, alongside its deliveries to Israeli power plants.[9]

Later reporting placed Tamar’s contribution at 47 percent of the gas used by Israeli power plants and local factories in 2025, compared with 41 percent from Karish and 12 percent from Leviathan.[22] The same account put Tamar’s share of Israeli gas exports at 26 percent, with Leviathan supplying most of the remainder, principally to Egypt and secondarily to Jordan.[22] A separate 2025 account described Tamar as providing 60–70 percent of Israel’s electricity; that electricity-related figure is distinct from its reported share of gas supplied to power plants and factories.[3]

The October 2023 shutdown demonstrated the field’s continuing importance to both domestic generation and exports.[10][20] Other fields helped cover Israeli demand partly by reducing deliveries to Egypt, and the Energy Ministry stated that alternative fuels would be used while Tamar was offline.[20][21] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs argues that the shortfall forced greater use of coal and diesel, increased air pollution, and caused damage estimated at approximately NIS 800 million per month.[20][25] Its assessment says energy supply stabilized and returned to its prewar level after about a month.[25]

Expansion plans changed between the planning stage and completion.[22][24] A March 2023 plan envisaged raising annual output from 10.2 billion to 11.65 billion cubic meters in 2026 through a third pipeline and platform expansion, at an estimated cost of approximately $673 million.[24] A reserves-based projection prepared with BDO anticipated production at that planned level through 2041, followed by a gradual decline through 2053.[24] These were forward-looking assumptions, rather than a record of subsequent production.[24]

The completed 2026 project was reported at $664 million, with annual production capacity increased to 16 billion cubic meters—a 45 percent rise and slightly above Leviathan’s reported 15.8 billion cubic meters.[22] Its third 150-kilometer pipeline and compressor upgrades expanded the system’s ability to move gas from the reservoir toward the market.[22] The separate technical-capability measure rose to 1.6 billion cubic feet per day, distinguishing the upgraded installation’s capability from earlier reported annual output and planning forecasts.[5]

Gas from Tamar’s subsea wells first passes through infield flowlines to a manifold before entering the long pipelines running south to the processing platform.[1] The October 2025 environmental assessment described two approximately 150-kilometer, 16-inch pipelines linking the field and platform.[1] The third 150-kilometer pipeline was subsequently added through the expansion completed in 2026.[5][22] The reservoir’s deepwater well system and the shallower-water platform therefore form separate parts of an extended offshore production network.[1]

The platform is a fixed structure approximately 25 kilometers offshore in roughly 235 meters of water.[1] Reporting during the 2023 shutdown located it about 13 miles off the coast south of Ashkelon and a similar distance from Gaza, in water more than 500 feet deep.[10] A 2014 description put the structure’s total height at 290 meters and its weight at 34,000 tons, with a crew of 50 people.[26] These platform measurements refer to the processing installation, rather than the water depth above the reservoir itself.[1][26]

At the platform, gas arriving at high pressure from the seafloor wellheads undergoes preliminary processing, including separation from other gases and pressure reduction.[26] Processed gas then travels through a 30-inch pipeline to the Ashdod Onshore Terminal, where the route connects with Israel’s natural-gas transmission system.[1] Further onshore processing at Ashdod precedes entry into the grid, through which gas can reach domestic power stations and export customers.[9]

The development initially made use of infrastructure associated with the Yam Tethys field and the Mari-B development.[3][16] At the March 2013 launch, the field-to-platform connection was described as 150 kilometers long, followed by onward transport to the Ashdod receiving terminal.[16] The 2026 optimization retained this field–platform–terminal arrangement while adding another offshore pipeline and reinstating three booster gas compressors at the terminal.[5] Those works addressed the transport and compression stages of the supply chain as well as the field’s reported production capability.[5]

Tamar’s published gas estimates have changed over time and encompass different categories, including resources, proved reserves, recoverable reserves, and remaining reserves.[12][15][24] The distinction matters because resources is a broad category that includes reserves as well as gas considered less likely to be produced.[15] Accordingly, an early resource estimate and a later figure for remaining or proved reserves are not necessarily measurements of the same quantity.[12][15]

A 2011 estimate placed Tamar’s resources at 8.4 trillion cubic feet, while congressional testimony in 2016 described its original proved reserves as approximately seven trillion cubic feet.[12][15] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs also used 8.4 trillion cubic feet, or 238 billion cubic meters, in a 2011 article.[27] Its 2013 analysis instead estimated probable resources at 275 billion cubic meters, or 9.7 trillion cubic feet, comparing that amount with approximately two decades of Israel’s expected gas consumption at the time.[13]

Reports around the start of production likewise used several figures.[16][17] One March 2013 account gave 8.5 trillion cubic feet, while another cited nine trillion cubic feet.[16][17] Shortly afterward, Noble Energy raised its gross resource estimate from nine trillion to ten trillion cubic feet following development drilling and further reservoir analysis, with Netherland Sewell & Associates supporting the revision.[16] A 2014 estimate also used ten trillion cubic feet, while a later account published in 2023 used 13 trillion cubic feet.[2][28]

In July 2017, Netherland, Sewell & Associates estimated 11.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 14.6 million barrels of condensate, with the gas figure described as 13 percent above earlier estimates.[3] The government’s 2018 energy-sector review listed a reservoir size of 282 billion cubic meters and 232 billion cubic meters remaining at the end of that year.[7] A government investment document separately listed Tamar and Tamar SW together at 282 billion cubic meters of 2P reserves.[29]

A reserve report for year-end 2022 put remaining reserves at 294 billion cubic meters, approximately 0.5 percent above its preceding estimate.[24] A 2025 report placed estimated reserves at 291.5 billion cubic meters and annual production capacity at 10.3 billion cubic meters.[19] These differently dated figures retain their original units and categories rather than establishing a single, directly interchangeable reserve total.[15][24]

In 2011, Lebanese leaders raised concerns that newly announced offshore discoveries, including Tamar, might extend partly into waters claimed by Lebanon.[15] Israel and Lebanon had not defined their maritime boundary at that time, and the United Nations had declined to delineate it.[15] The concerns were claims within a historical boundary dispute, not a finding that Tamar lay in Lebanese waters.[15] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs likewise discussed uncertainty in 2011 about possible extensions of Tamar and Leviathan into claimed waters; that account concerns the dispute as it stood then, rather than the boundary’s present status.[27]