Ari Rabinovitch
JERUSALEM, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Israel began accepting bids this week from energy companies to drill for oil and gas in 24 offshore blocks, and its energy minister said that in the end he would be happy choosing just two or three foreign exploration groups.
Upon announcing the tender, Israel released new geological data pointing to a good probability that large natural gas deposits are buried off its Mediterranean coast.
"The preferred outcome is that at the end of the tender we can choose two, three companies that present serious, concrete and relatively fast work plans," Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.
They could bid together with local partners, but each group must have a foreigner, he said, "because today in Israel there still are no serious operators".
