Deadlocked since May, indirect talks between Lebanon and Israel on the delimitation of their maritime border, with a view to the exploitation of offshore hydrocarbon resources, will resume next week.

This was announced by the Israeli Ministry of Energy on Wednesday January 26, the same day that the Lebanese President, Michel Aoun, indicated for his part that the country of Cedars was "ready to resume negotiations" with the Hebrew state.

Sign that the release is in progress, Karine Elharrar, the Israeli Minister of Energy, must meet in the coming days with the American envoy Amos Hochstein, charged by President Joe Biden with mediating between the two neighbors who have never officially drawn their borders.

Lebanon and Israel are still technically at war, failing to sign a peace treaty, despite an armistice signed in 1949.

The talks, placed under the aegis of the UN and American mediation, had begun in October 2020 and aimed to settle the dispute which has lasted for more than a decade between the two countries, around a disputed area of an area of ​​860 km2, in the middle of the eastern Mediterranean, where very large gas reserves have been identified in recent years.

The disputed area between Lebanon and Israel.

© France 24

To resolve the dispute, the American diplomat and mediator Frederic Hof, in charge of the file between 2010 and 2012, had divided this area into two unequal parts.

The "Hof line" allocated 55% of the area to Lebanon against 45% to its Israeli neighbor.

A sharing that the Lebanese party, which considers itself to be in its right based on the international standards recognized by the United Nations, has refrained from validating.

Lebanese one-upmanship

After several years of interruption, the negotiations are therefore restarting in October 2020 at the headquarters of the UN Interim Force in Naqoura, in southern Lebanon, after the announcement of a framework agreement on the mechanism of the negotiations.

But they find themselves two months later in a new deadlock due to an outbidding by the Lebanese delegation, made up of military and civilian experts, claiming an additional 1,430 km2 to the south, and consequently bringing the maritime conflict no longer to 860 km2, but out of a total of 2,290 km2.

Map provided by the Lebanese army and published by several local media showing the "Hof line" (H) and the entire area claimed by the Lebanese negotiators, which is located between line 1 and line 29. © Lebanese army

Except that this new requirement, rejected by the Israelis and based on a technical report from the UK Hydrographic Institute dating from 2011 and on data from the Lebanese Hydrographic Office, has not been formalized by Beirut at the United Nations – yet the only way for Lebanon to officially update the claimed rights.

President Michel Aoun, who had initially supported the Lebanese overbidding, considered that its formalization could "put an end to negotiations" with Israel, which affirmed for its part, in October 2021, to be ready to resolve its dispute with Lebanon while refusing that Beirut "dictates" the terms of the talks.

Since then, the chief negotiator of the Lebanese delegation, General Bassam Yassine, who was behind the last one-upmanship, has been retired.

The resolution of the dispute is essential so that Lebanon, in the midst of economic and financial sinking, can begin the exploration and exploitation of its hydrocarbon reserves in the disputed area, where part of block 9 of the economic zone is located. Exclusive (EEZ) Lebanese.

Located off South Lebanon, this block is considered one of the most promising.

But the border conflict, combined with the context of permanent tensions between the Jewish state and Hezbollah, the Shiite politico-military movement which has proclaimed itself the defender of Lebanese hydrocarbons, is of great concern to international companies capable of investing in the area.

The secretary general of the pro-Iranian party, Hassan Nasrallah, has repeatedly threatened Israel with bombing its facilities in the event of unilateral prospecting in the disputed blocs, and warned against any attempt to normalize with the Jewish state in exchange for a possible agreement on the maritime border.

“It is said in the country that the situation is so blocked that the Lebanese could be satisfied with the 860 km2, that is to say the initial claim, with some modifications in exchange for a total agreement, explains to France 24 Laury Haytayan, a Lebanese expert in the geopolitics of hydrocarbons and director of the regional program in the Middle East of the independent organization Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). Israelis and Americans."

A Lebanese political class "under pressure"

According to her, it seems unlikely that the resumption of negotiations can be based on the Hof line.

"This sharing is deemed unacceptable by the Lebanese, and it has moreover been the target of a campaign in the country insisting that this line is not a good starting point for a win-win agreement for the Lebanese. country of the Cedars, and that on the contrary it is too favorable to the Israelis since it offers them the maximum that they can have, continues the expert. I do not think that the Lebanese political class, even if it is necessary to be expect anything with her, can afford to accept the Hof line and present the eventual agreement as a success."

Especially with the approach of the Lebanese legislative elections scheduled for the spring.

But while Israel has already been exploiting its offshore gas fields for several years, including a prolific field called Tamar, and concluded gas contracts with its former regional enemies, Jordan and Egypt, the country of Cedars is very late.

After several years of deadlock, due to a lack of political consensus between Lebanese players, the hydrocarbons file had experienced a decisive boost with the signing, in February 2018, of the first two exploration and production contracts between the Lebanese government and an international consortium led by the French oil giant TotalEnergies, associated with the Italian ENI and the Russian Novatek.

The latter had obtained licenses for two of the ten blocks of concessions in the Lebanese EEZ, 4 and 9.

But the first results of the exploration carried out by the French giant TotalEnergie in block 4, located between Beirut and Tripoli, very far from the border with Israel, showed the presence of gas without proving so far the existence of gas. 'a reservoir.

Since then, the Lebanese government launched, at the end of November, an international call for tenders for the allocation of exploration and exploitation licenses for the supposed hydrocarbon reserves in the eight remaining blocks of the EEZ, including the 8th and the 10, which bite... the area disputed by Israel.

A decision denounced by the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, to the secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.

It is in this context that the American envoy, whose last tour in the region dates back to October, is expected in the coming days.

"Now that Amos Hochstein is supposed to come back with new proposals to allow the talks to move forward, the Lebanese political class finds itself under pressure to negotiate because it is banking heavily on the hydrocarbon sector and basing many of its promises economic recovery on the exploitation and future development of the deposits, underlines Laury Haytayan. During his last visit in October 2021, the American negotiator had indeed warned that the mediation of Washington must be completed before March 2022, and for the first times since the negotiations began, he indicated that without this agreement, there would be no development of deposits.

"Lebanese gas does not yet exist"

Back to the wall, Lebanon is therefore not in the best position to negotiate, while the leaders remain on their guard because of the privileged relationship between the United States, which plays the mediator, with its Israeli ally.

The negotiator Amos Hochstein is himself described as a spy by the Lebanese media close to Hezbollah "because he was born in Israel".

"The Lebanese political class has put its back against the wall on its own, because it is not only the blockage due to border disputes in the South that is costing Lebanon dearly. It is one of the problems but not the only one. ", notes Laury Haytayan. The accumulated delay is also explained by irresponsible political blockages, motivated by the lure of profit, and corruption at all levels which prevented it from carrying out the necessary reforms. However, without confidence, it is difficult to attract investors."

An accumulated delay that risks depriving Lebanon, weighed down for decades by chronic power shortages, of unexpected economic opportunities.

And this, at a time when the gas market is blazing in Europe with prices that have soared in recent months.

A favorable context for Russia which, with Gazprom, is the main gas supplier for the continent. According to experts, good governance in terms of hydrocarbons allows a country to triple its per capita income. But as the lingering threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine worries Westerners, the risks of disruptions in Russia's gas supply to Europe and a further spike in energy prices have re-emerged. area.

"Gas is in great demand given the global energy context, except that Lebanese gas does not yet exist since in the event of a positive discovery, it takes between seven and ten years to develop the reservoir, which projects the country into the best cases in 2030, deplores Laury Haytayan. However, I do not think that the international crisis will last until 2030. Moreover, with the quest for and development of clean and renewable energies and a changing global market, it is not known whether gas Lebanese will be competitive between 2030 and 2050."

And to conclude: "Although the gas found in this part of the Mediterranean basin could help Europeans today, it is not Lebanese gas that will play the savior, while other nations benefit from it, such as the 'Egypt and Israel for example, which already sell their liquefied natural gas on the market.'

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app

google-play-badge_FR