An upcoming Energean Oil & Gas share offer at the London stock exchange worth a sum of 500 million dollars has generated considerable British media interest beyond publications specializing in the enery sector. The media coverage to date has included reports in the Financial Times, Daiily Telegraph and The Times.

The level of success achieved by Energean Oil & Gas, Greece’s only privately owned hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation firm, is important for the country’s national morale ahead of Greece’s planned return to international capital markets, when the third bailout program soon expires.

Last year, the firm – launched in 2007 as Aegean Energy before switching to its current business name – took a big step by acquiring the Karish and Tanin fields, offshore Israel, from Israel’s Delek.

Officials in London have already declared Energean’s upcoming share offer as a guaranteed success, basing their upbeat projections on the certified 2.4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 33 million barrels of light crude oil at the firm’s Israeli fields.

The exploitation effort of these deposits is expected to cost 1.6 billion dollars with first gas expected to be produced in 2021.

Energean Oil & Gas plans to invest 395 million dollars – of the total of 500 million dollars anticipated from the London share offer – at its Israeli facilities as well as a further 353 million dollars, over the next four years, for development of its Greek fields.

Less than a fortnight ago, Energean Oil & Gas extended its long-term offtake agreement with BP for its Prinos license in northern Greece by four years, until November 1, 2025.

All of the group’s production of crude oil from the Prinos basin is currently sold to BP under the offtake agreement.

The discovery of offshore hydrocarbon deposits in waters controlled by Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Cyprus has prompted global energy firms to turn to the east Mediterranean region, despite problems faced by all the aforementioned countries with neighboring countries.

Details concerning the development of East Med, a 2,000-km pipeline planned to carry southeast Mediterranean natural gas deposits along a route stretching from Israel to Europe, need to be finalized, including the project’s route and development method.

This project, estimated to cost 6 billion euros, is expected to cover energy needs in the region and EU member states.