BEIRUT, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday urged French, Italian and Russian energy companies to resume their exploration work in Lebanon's territorial waters without yielding to external pressure, the National News Agency reported.
"There is no excuse to stop working in Lebanon, especially that companies will work in an undisputed area of the sea," Berri said.
Last year, France's Total, Italy's Eni and Russia's Novatek completed exploratory drilling in Lebanon's offshore Bloc 4 but did not find a commercially viable amount of hydrocarbons.
Meanwhile, drilling in Bloc 9, some of which lies in disputed waters with Israel, was postponed until Oct. 22, 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Lebanese Petroleum Administration.
Berri's call for Total, Eni and Novatek to start exploration in Bloc 9 came after a recent Israeli move to commission the U.S. Halliburton Company to drill three to five wells in the Karish gas field, which is located near its disputed maritime border with Lebanon.
In 2020, Israel and Lebanon began U.S.-brokered negotiations on their maritime border but talks stalled later when Lebanon made new claims that expanded the disputed area from 860 square km to 2,300 square km to include part of the Karish North field.
The U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein will be in Lebanon next week in an attempt to resume Lebanon's indirect negotiations with Israel on maritime border demarcation, Berri revealed. ■
