Israel's abundant natural gas reserves, located in the eastern Mediterranean, have grown by 40% over the past decade due to increased drilling and exploration activities, an industry report said.

Gas production is carried out by four wells connected by two 18-inch, 73-mile subsea tiebacks to a natural gas processing platform located 10 km offshore Dor, Israel.

Gas and condensate pipelines link the platform to an onshore reception station at Dor which is connected to the domestic Israeli gas and liquid fuels pipeline networks.

The growth came amid five-fold growth in offshore gas production since the start-up of Israel's first major producing Tamar field in 2013, the report prepared by consultancy BDO for the Israeli Natural Gas Trade Association said.

Israel's gas reserves grew from 780 billion cubic meters (Bcm) in 2012 to 1,087 Bcm at the end of 2022, while 119 Bcm was extracted over the same period, the report said.

The new natural gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean have given impetus to the prospective EastMed pipeline ~ a subsea pipeline designed to supply natural gas to Europe from the eastern Mediterranean and projected to start from Israel and go through Cyprus, Greece and reach Italy with a different pipeline before reaching Europe ~ despite US government opposition which deems the EastMed pipeline unviable and not in line with Washington's reduced carbon footprint philosophy.