Potholes in the road to extraction

Lebanon’s progress towards extracting its offshore oil and gas in 2013 could perhaps be summed up by a version of the somewhat hackneyed phrase ‘one step forward and one (possibly two) steps back’. The first six months of the year things appeared to be moving like clockwork. Energy Minister Gebran Bassil was powering (critics would say bludgeoning) ahead in his attempts to extract and the six-member Petroleum Administration — appointed in November 2012 — began its work in a positive fashion. On March 28, just days after the government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati collapsed, Bassil publicly announced the names of the 52 companies from 25 countries that had submitted applications to bid on the country’s offshore oil and gas. Positively, he also announced clear criteria for determining which would be accepted. Operators — the largest companies in the three-company consortiums — were required to have total assets of at