LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Energean announced on
Thursday it will develop a new natural gas field off the coast
of Israel at an initial cost of $150 million.
Energean also said it had signed an 18-month, $700 million
loan facility with J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley to help fund
the development and pay for the acquisition of a minority stake
in Energean Israel from private equity firm Kerogen.
The Karish North field, which was discovered less than two
years ago, is expected to start production in the second half of
2023, the company said in a statement.
The final investment decision had been expected by the end
of 2020.
The field will be connected via a 5.4 kilometre (3.36 miles)
pipeline to Energean's 8 billion cubic metre-per-year floating
production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit where the main
Karish field is being developed and is expected to start
production by year-end.
The first well at Karish North is expected to produce up to
300 million standard cubic feet per day (3 billion cubic metres
per year).
(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Jason Neely)