Mansour Says EEZ Detailed Report Completed

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour revealed on Friday that his ministry finished a detailed report over the Exclusive Economic Zone and referred it a month ago to the cabinet’s general secretariat.

He wondered in comments published in As Safir newspaper why the issue wasn’t set for discussion on the cabinet’s agenda.

The government is scheduled to convene on next Wednesday at the Grand Serail.

“The study would enable the state to base the project on scientific and fixed foundations to negotiate with any other country over its maritime border,” Mansour pointed out.

Speaker Nabih Berri has continuously criticized the cabinet over its delay in setting the final details regarding Lebanon’s offshore oil wealth project.

Lebanon and Israel are bickering over a zone that consists of about 854 square kilometers and suspected energy reserves there could generate billions of dollars.

In March 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 34.5 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Cyprus.

Lebanon has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. Israel, Cyprus and Turkey are all much more advanced in drilling for oil and gas.