- 31 октября 2013, 19:21
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Forbes.com: News
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Выбор редакции
This week, Lebanon’s Energy Minister Gebran Bassil announced that his country’s offshore gas potential could end up being even more plentiful than first announced, telling Reuters that “under a probability of 50 percent, for almost 45 percent of our waters has reached 95.9 trillion cubic feet of gas and 865 million barrels of oil.” Bassil’s comments present a rosier assessment than earlier studies. However, they shouldn't be confused with actual progress when it comes to exploiting Lebanon’s claims to the new-found Eastern Mediterranean offshore bonanza. Instead, the new findings highlight just how much Beirut is missing out on due to a lengthy list of political and fiscal challenges, most notably a political paralysis that has frozen the exploration efforts in place for much of the year. No New Cabinet, No Progress While a ballooning public debt and an influx of refugees from Syria over the last year pose a significant challenge to providing the stability necessary to kickstart a massive new exploration effort, it’s the country’s political landscape that is presenting the largest obstacle to Lebanon getting in on the region’s natural gas rush.