Lebanon’s terrible first impression

The odds are now stacked in favor of there being a treasure trove of hydrocarbons locked under Lebanon’s seabed. Nobody can be certain until the first field has successfully been tapped but it is certainly looking promising. So when the government held the Lebanon International Petroleum Exploration Forum & Exhibition in early July it is no surprise that industry players from far and wide were swarming like bees around the proverbial honey pot. Representatives from the big guns to the small fry came to Beirut to sniff out what the government had on offer and they had two reasons to be interested. The first is the fact that Lebanon is sitting on the same geographical structures that have already come up trumps for Israel and Cyprus. Houston-based Nobel Energy has been operating in Israeli waters since 1998 but in recent years has had two massive finds. In 2009 they successfully