BICOM

Michael Williams, the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon said yesterday that the UN would assist Lebanon in demarcating its sea borders, in order to protect the country’s gas reserves. Williams’s comments came after Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri asked the UN to help protect the country’s gas reserves following the discovery by Israel of a huge gas filed off its coast. Lebanon claims that Israel has drilled in areas extending to within Lebanese territorial waters. Israel denies this claim. Because Lebanon has never signed a peace treaty with Israel, there is no official maritime border between the two countries. Lebanon is demanding that no company

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Ali al-Shami said no company should be permitted to operate in the area until the maritime border is demarcated. Texas-based Noble Energy and its Israeli partners say they have made the world’s biggest gas discovery of the decade in the Leviathan prospect, 80 miles off the Israeli port of Haifa. Lebanon, which says that seismic surveys have identified promising quantities of natural gas in its own waters, appealed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week to ensure Israeli exploration did not encroach on its waters.