CAIRO (Reuters) – Lebanon President Joseph Aoun on Tuesday told Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani that he hopes TotalEnergies will soon resume oil and gas exploration off the coast of Lebanon, according to a statement from the president’s office.
In 2023 state-owned QatarEnergy joined France’s TotalEnergies and Italy’s Eni (ENI.MI) in a three-way consortium to look for oil and gas in two maritime blocks off the coast of Lebanon.
No hydrocarbon finds were made after exploratory offshore drilling in 2023, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters at the time.
TotalEnergies did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Drilling plans in Lebanon, which had hoped gas and oil discoveries would help it to reverse its crippling economic crisis, had been derailed until a ceasefire deal ended conflict between Israel and militant Lebanese group Hezbollah towards the end of last year.
Reconstruction plans that would include oil and gas exploration are awaiting formation of a new Lebanese government after the election of Western-backed president Aoun in January ended a two-year presidential vacuum.
(Reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din and Nayera Abdallah; Editing by David Goodman)
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