Lebanon announces qualified oil and gas firms

Lebanon's Petroleum Administration (PA) and the Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW) have announced the names of 46 companies who have successfully pre-qualified to enter the first licensing round for offshore oil and gas exploration. The bidding is set to begin on May 2. 52 companies from 25 countries submitted applications, 14 as operators, 37 as non-operators and one unspecified. Six companies were rejected — one operator, four non-operators, and the firm which had not specified. One firm, Cairn India, applied as an operator but qualified as a non-operator. “This is an unprecedented step towards entering the oil and gas producing world,” claimed Gebran Bassil, minister of energy and water. The PA assessed the companies on a strict set of legal, financial, technical and Quality Environmental Health and Safety criteria. For example, operators had to evidence total assets of at least $10 billion and ownership of at least one petroleum