Gas, sea and smoke changes: the fight for the Leviathan rig

A rig that will be placed about ten kilometers west of Dor Beach and that is intended to supply natural gas to the Israeli economy in the coming decades is already in advanced stages of development and construction. Is it safe for health and the environment? Here's everything you need to know about the major environmental fight of 2018

By Angle System - a news agency for science and the environment

Dor Beach is one of the most beautiful and popular bathing beaches in Israel. Even the hustle and bustle of the many visitors who come to it during the summer vacation does not manage to disturb the peace of the place. However, in recent months this quiet place has turned into a real battleground, where opposing economic interests, great fears and an abundance of emotional and media manipulations collide.

Hundreds of meters of pipelines for the transport of gas and condensate (one of the by-products of gas production) have already been placed in a depression at a depth of about 15 meters in the seabed under a narrow strip of Dor beach, but the real focus of the conflict is located about ten kilometers from the coastline - where it will be placed in 2019 The Leviathan rig, to which large quantities of natural gas from the Leviathan gas field in the deep sea are supposed to flow at the end of 2019.

This story actually started already in 2010, when Israel discovered significant reserves of natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea. The main ones, named Tamar and Whale along with the smaller ones Shark and Tanin, will change the face of the Israeli energy economy in the twenty-first century: beyond the fact that our dependence on fuels based on oil and coal forces us to rely on resources originating from other countries (including those that are defined as enemies of Israel) , because today energy is produced from these fuels in a way that causes the emission of large amounts of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide), which in turn cause the earth to warm, in addition to nitrogen and sulfur oxides and respirable particles that pollute the air we breathe and seriously harm our health.

Natural gas, on the other hand, is "cleaner" in terms of the emissions that its combustion creates and their effect on health and in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. Its production process, if that's not enough, is also cheaper. However, it should also be remembered that during the drilling, the current production and after the end of the life of the well, are created Significant emissions of methane gas into the atmosphere, whose effect as a greenhouse gas on climate change is 28 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.

The discovery and development of significant gas reserves therefore seems like a good interim solution for Israel's energy economy, on the condition that gas replaces coal, fuel oil and diesel and is combined with an increasing ratio of energy production from renewable sources (such as wind and solar). In the Leviathan reservoir alone there is gas in the amount of 621 BCM which should be enough for the economy for 65 years (without export) - an amount that will allow Israel to develop energy independence and transfer a considerable amount from electricity production, industry and perhaps even our transportation (mainly electric transportation, when electricity is produced from gas) to the use of clean energy More than oil and coal and even cheaper, while dramatically reducing air pollution in the city centers and in general.

10 or 120 kilometers?

The Leviathan Reservoir is about 120 kilometers from the coast at a water depth of about 1,700 meters, that is, within Israel's economic waters and far outside its territorial waters (up to 22 kilometers from the coast). In order for the gas to be available for use, it is necessary to drill in the seabed, pump it, treat it and transport it to the shore safely. After a long examination and discussion process that lasted about four years in the National Planning and Construction Council, a process that was open to the public and in which representatives of residents and representatives of environmental organizations also participated, a national outline plan (TMA) 37/h was approved, in which it was decided not to handle the gas on land (as is customary in some places many in the world), but to build a permanent production and treatment rig - the rig that is at the heart of the public debate - which will be erected in the sea on pillars that will be fixed in the seabed at the edge of the continental shelf about 10 kilometers west of Dor Beach, at a bottom depth of about 86 meters.

An underwater system of pipes at the opening of the wells in the deep-sea reservoir (a system that has already been built and placed on the seabed) will connect the gas field to the permanent treatment rig, where all the treatment of the gas and its by-products will take place, after which the finished products will be transported by pipeline to the shore: in the case of Leviathan, it is condensate - Oil defined as light to medium (35-45 API) that is condensed in the gas extraction process, and in natural gas.

After receiving the necessary approvals, the plan to build the rig was implemented. So far, the rig has not yet been given a permit to discharge into the sea and a permit to emit into the air, which the operators of the rig will be obliged to obtain from the Ministry of Environmental Protection before operating it. The Leviathan rig is currently in the middle of the construction process in Texas. Noble Energy, which together with other partners is responsible for the discovery of the Leviathan gas reservoir, will be in charge of producing and handling the gas.

But not everyone is satisfied with the future, many residents of the area are not interested in a petrochemical plant for the refining and production of gas and fuel being built near their beloved beach, which may release into the air and water various substances that they claim pose a serious health hazard.

Despite the statements of the government ministries responsible for the issue - the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Environmental Protection - according to which the project is supervised by them and the emissions into the sea and the air during the gas production process will be carried out after treatment and in a controlled manner, in concentrations that are safe for the public and the marine environment - the residents of the area have embarked on a persistent struggle, which promises to reach the High Court To stop the construction of the Leviathan rig near the coast and in its place build a floating rig (FPSO) for the treatment and production of the gas at the wellhead, at a distance of 120 kilometers from the coast.

The residents base their concerns, among other things, on the damages they say are already being caused by the Tamar rig, which has been operating since 2012 at a distance of about 23 kilometers from Ashkelon beach (one kilometer outside Israel's territorial waters), and which emits pollutants into the air and seawater. The Leviathan rig is expected to handle much larger quantities of gas and its products, and will be located closer to the coast, and residents fear that the amount of emitted substances and exposure to them will also increase accordingly.

"I'm not saying that this rig will be something that we shouldn't live because of here in the country, but the pollution that will occasionally rise from it into the air and the pollution that will spill into the water - can cause damage for generations," says Yehuda Bruner, one of the leaders of the civil struggle of the Coastal Plain Defenders, one of the organizations active against Whale rig. "The ones who will suffer from this are mainly the future generations. The children, the babies that will be born in the area. As soon as this rig starts operating, they will breathe polluted air from the first day of their lives, and the desalinated water they will drink will also be polluted.'

Brunner emphasizes that the residents understand the importance of natural gas to the economy, and they are not against the construction of the rig in principle. "All we're asking from the state is an answer to the question - is there technology today that makes it possible to do all the treatment of gas in the middle of the sea? Did you find gas 120 kilometers from the coast? Nice, take it and enjoy it, but you will also take care of it 120 kilometers from the coast - above the reservoir - instead of bringing it to the beach to pollute us here," he says.

Nimbi for the advanced?

These claims are completely rejected by the government ministries, who define this struggle as an unnecessary struggle, and as one that arose late. "You have to understand that there is a finality to the procedures in the State of Israel," says Yossi Wurzburger, who is in charge of oil at the Ministry of Energy. "Why not build the rig in the place that the planning administration approved? That is, there is a place that the State of Israel approved. Noble Energy operates after receiving all the approvals, there are building permits from all the planning institutions. In the national committee that approved the plan, the government ministries (energy, environmental protection, health, defense, finance, the prime minister's office, etc.) sat alongside representatives of the local authorities, the Technion, the Society for the Protection of Nature. Everyone relevant to this decision approved it. And in addition, an environmental impact survey was also carried out. So did everyone just work for four years to approve this plan?'

According to Wurzburger, this is a "Nimbi" struggle (in English the acronym of the phrase Not In My Back Yard and in Hebrew: against placement in backyards), a term that describes struggles that focus on the desire of residents to move infrastructure away from their homes, even if they are considered beneficial to the environment in the larger picture. Wurzburger claims that in this case, the residents took this matter further than usual, because it is not actually a distance that can be defined as "close" to their homes. "The rig is going to be erected ten kilometers from the coast," he says. "But the residents give us a feeling as if it is close to the beach. For example, those who cheered at the time against the continued operation of the Reading power plant with fuel oil and demanded the transition to production using gas were the residents of Tel Aviv - not the residents of Petah Tikva, Kfar Shemarihu or the residents of central Holon which are located about 10 kilometers from Reading. When you look at the overall setup, you see that the rig is located in the right place. This struggle is really taking Nimbi one step further.'

In the many publications of the residents who oppose the rig, you can indeed see a computer simulation they made in which a large rig is located next to a bathing beach - a situation that is very different from the reality that will be on the ground - but the residents claim that the view does not bother them, but the materials that the rig may emit. In the process of producing and treating natural gas, water called "production water" is created, which they claim contains heavy metals. Thus, for example, the residents say that they fear that the substances contained in the water will contaminate, among other things, the sea water used by the desalination plant in Hadera, which is located approximately 16 kilometers southeast of the location of the rig.

According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, this fear has no basis. According to them, since 2012, the marine environment has been monitored around the existing Tamar and Mari B production rigs, which have since ended their operation, as part of which parameters such as the quality of the sea water, the accumulation of pollutants on the bottom and the impact on the animal society are examined. "As of today, it is not possible to point to a specific negative effect of the rigs on the quality of seawater, ground water or marine life", claims Rani Amir, who for the past 11 years managed the Sea and Coastal Division at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and currently serves as the director of the Haifa district of the ministry. "From the seawater tests it can be seen that the high salinity of the production water drops to natural seawater values ​​up to one kilometer away from the rig. The concentrations of metals in the seabed around the rigs also do not exceed the natural values ​​for the seabed in Israel. The distribution of production water at the Leviathan rig is expected to be similar to what happens at the Tamar rig. In addition, the rig is located more than 15 kilometers from the desalination facility in Hadera, and the current directions in the area ensure that there is no fear of contamination of the desalination water due to the rig's activity.'

Who is afraid of condensate?

Another concern raised by the residents concerns another product of the gas extraction process: a substance called Condensate (Condensate) - which has gained a dubious reputation because it is a volatile and flammable substance (light oil, similar to diesel and gasoline). The condensate condenses into a liquid in the gas production process and is used in industry today as a diluent for transporting crude oil, and also as a raw material in the refining process when producing fuel. The main advantage of using condensate as a raw material for the production of fuels in the refining process lies in the fact that its refining requires less energy compared to crude oil.

The condensate from the rig is planned to be piped through an underwater pipeline that is currently located at Dor Beach to the beach where it will mix in a ratio of up to 3 percent (which will dramatically reduce its volatility) with the crude oil that is flowed through the Katsa pipeline to the refineries. The new pipeline that is being laid as well as that of KATC pass, among other things, over the coastal aquifer.

Bruner and his comrades in the struggle fear, as mentioned, that a fault in the rig or the transport pipeline will cause condensate to leak into the water sources or its emission into the air, but the experts in the government offices are not worried. "Condensate is almost the same as gasoline, they just gave it a bad name," says Wurzburger from the Ministry of Energy. "Gas stations, for example, have a much greater impact on the environment than the condensate. In addition, a condensate pipe is already connected to the pipeline that carries all the millions of barrels that BZN distills annually. It is an underground pipe, which according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection has no effect on the citizens around it. After the construction of the rig, we are supposed to transfer through the pipeline an amount of about 2,000 barrels per day at peak, when the current pipeline already flows millions of barrels per day to the refineries. That is, what is expected is not even an annual percentage of what is already being pumped in today. So why are they making a fuss about it now?'

The Ministry of Environmental Protection, at the same time, claims that the construction and operation of the condensate pipeline from Leviathan to the coast will be supervised by them according to the Hazardous Materials Law, as will be formulated in the toxics permit that will be issued to the facilities. The conditions of the permit will require a system to detect leaks, as well as facilities to store the condensate. They also point out that an underwater pipeline for transporting fuels - including crude oil and its products - has existed in Israel for many years, and that the volume of transportation of these fuels in pipelines already stands at about 14 million tons per year.

"It must be understood that, in principle, condensate flows in a completely closed system and is not injected or leaked into the marine or terrestrial environment," the ministry says. "At the same time, in the event of malfunctions and as a precondition for approval of operation of the Leviathan rig, an industrial emergency plan will be submitted by Noble Energy as the operator of the rig, the purpose of which is to respond to the preparation of the equipment and personnel required to handle an oil spill incident to the sea and beaches."

"All the fuels of the State of Israel arrive by sea in tankers," says Amir. "It happens in huge quantities, with crude oil and fuel oil - substances that are much more problematic. So the potential risk of a condensate leak from a pipe whose source is located 10 kilometers from the coast - in a quantity much smaller than that of one tanker arriving by sea, which has about XNUMX tons - is disproportionate.'

And what about air pollution?

Apart from the maligned condensate, the main concern of the residents - as well as the ministries, which they claim are providing a proper response to the issue - is the air pollution that will be emitted from the rig, both in routine and in cases of malfunctions.

The residents' fear is that over the years various leaks and malfunctions in the rig will lead to many cases of the residents of the area being exposed to carcinogenic substances such as benzene (which is also found in gasoline), and they are not at all convinced that the regulator is doing what is necessary to prevent this. In this case, too, they base their concern on, among other things, the situation at Asada Tamar, from which - as it turned out - volatile organic pollutants are emitted into the air in higher concentrations than the models of the gas companies predicted.

According to Reot Rabi, manager of the energy field in the air quality division of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the lessons learned from the Tamar rig are used not only to reduce emissions from it today, but also influence the planning process of the Leviathan rig. "As a lesson from the planning and construction process of the Tamar rig, the Leviathan rig is being built as an orderly plan starting from the TMA level and ending with detailed plans and construction permits issued by its authority," she explains. "Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environmental Protection forwarded to Noble Energy basic instructions for the rig's design, including a requirement for emission standards from energy production facilities, a ban on venting gases, and the obligation to establish a gas recovery system in the rig, which will greatly reduce emissions from it. These days, the application for the emission permit for the rig is being reviewed and the measures to reduce emissions are being considered. This orderly process, together with the implementation of the Ministry's requirements, is expected to result in the emissions from the Leviathan plant being about 97 percent lower than the emissions from the Tamar plant today.'

"The Leviathan rig is designed according to strict international standards and as a closed system - that is, gases are captured for reuse in the process", Noble Energy explains. "As part of the preparation for breakdowns, a gas burning torch will be installed in the rig. In unusual situations (such as a malfunction or periodic inspections) the gases will be routed to burn in a torch and thus their emission into the air will be avoided. The operation of the rig will be done in accordance with the instructions of the air emission permit from the Ministry of Environmental Protection.'

Regarding the dangers of air pollution as a result of emissions from the rig, Noble Energy's official claim is that "there is no fear of damaging the air quality in the coastal area. As part of the application for an air emission permit, emissions models were run in extreme scenarios, with strict assumptions of the meteorological conditions that affect the distribution of the emission. From the results of these models it was found that the amount of pollutants expected to reach the beach is negligible.'

Prof. David Brodai, an air pollution expert from the Faculty of Environmental Engineering at the Technion, has a lot to criticize about the results of these simulations. "The model that Noble Energy used in the environmental impact reports submitted to the Ministry of Environmental Protection has several problems," he says, "and the first is that they used a pollutant dispersion model that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) specifically defined as not suitable for factories located in the coastal area. The Ministry of Environmental Protection also defined that for factories on the coastline a different model should be used than the one Nobel used, because in the coastal area the distribution of pollutants is very different from that inland: the meteorology creates very significant changes in the flow regime of the air in the transition from flow over water to flow over land. If software does not know how to calculate these changes, then the results of the simulations will likely be wrong. The Ministry of Environmental Protection knows this, because they ordered that all factories located on the coastline - including the power plants, desalination plants, etc. - should use a different software when they do an environmental impact assessment. Here they received something that was not done correctly.'

According to Brodai, this is just one problem with the model. "The second thing that was done wrong is the scenario in which Nobel used its reviews," he says. "In order to calculate the emissions, she took a scenario called 'business as usual' - that is, a scenario according to which everything will work as it should, and under this assumption there will be a relatively constant emission throughout the year - and according to this they made an annual average of emissions. But what should be taken into account is that the average is always lower than the extreme values. My argument is that an aggravating scenario should be taken - although not the most aggravating, because a catastrophe occurs in very extreme cases, but a more aggravating scenario than usual - in order to protect the public and the environment.'

Brodai says that Nobel's claim that there will be no emissions - because in the event of a malfunction, all gases will be diverted to the torch - is completely implausible, and therefore the use of "business as usual" paints an incorrect picture. "If you look at rigs around the world, you see that there isn't a rig that doesn't have emissions of organic substances at all," he says, "so the first point to think about is - why are the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Environmental Protection willing to accept the claim that because everything will go to Lapid there will be no emissions? They do not refer here to the issue of non-focal emissions and intermittent but non-continuous emissions (eg seals) nor to possible faults in the torch.'

"In the US, production rigs are required to report emissions on a daily basis - you can track this and see both the intensity of the emissions and the number of incidents," he adds. "We checked and saw that emissions of organic substances occur in production rigs in a different way, but not necessarily continuously, throughout the year. The emissions vary in intensity - there are days when more is emitted and days when there is less, it depends on operational factors - but the point is that this is not an event that happens once a year, but there are many, many such events.'

Brodai ran, with other partners, an alternative model that examined the dispersion of pollutants from the rig. Unlike Nobel's model - which was based on data from one meteorological station - Brodai's model was based on data from a large number of different meteorological stations along the coastal plain in the area in question. "We checked the highest daily values ​​in different settlement points throughout the year (the model was run according to 2014 meteorology) and we were not surprised to find that there are seasonal changes - in the summer, for example, we see the highest concentrations."

Broday says that unlike Nobel's model, which only looked at the coastline (up to 10 kilometers from the rig), his simulation contained a five kilometer strip inland. "Our model showed that there are places where the average daily concentration is significantly higher than the daily standard for benzene." According to Brodai, the permissible daily standard is a concentration of 3.9 micrograms of benzene per cubic meter of air (mcg per cubic meter), and it is allowed to exceed it according to the law up to seven times. "We found according to the model that in a year at least 16 days of anomalies are expected in different places".

"I think that other independent professionals, but who are not funded by the developer, should perform similar lectures on severe realistic scenarios, in order for the development of Leviathan field to be carried out in a way that does not endanger the public", concludes Brodai. "If there is no danger, it is important that the public know this, or if there is a danger to public health, the government must change its previous decisions and act to build a whaling rig in a way and in a place that will not endanger the public."

To Prof. Brodai's claims regarding the appropriateness of the model chosen to test the environmental effects, the Ministry of Environmental Protection replied that "the Ministry of Environmental Protection carried out lectures on the recommended model, requested by Prof. Brodai, as part of the process of testing the environmental effects. In addition, the ministry recently performed additional runs on this model and found, as it found in the past, that the concentrations are significantly lower than the standard."

Regarding Brodai's claim of ignoring malfunction situations in the model, the ministry stated that "the Ministry of Environmental Protection of course also referred to malfunction scenarios, but no abnormalities were found in this case either."

In response to Brodai's claim regarding the many emission events throughout the year at Noble Energy's rigs, the ministry said that "the comparison between rigs with different technologies, which handle reservoir products with different characteristics, is wrong. The Leviathan rig, once constructed, will be obliged to comply with the law like any industrial facility required for an air emission permit. The emission permit will prohibit the use of gases and require the operation of the torch in a way that reduces emissions by 99 percent."

The ministry also stated that "it should be noted that Prof. Brodai and his partners used emissions that are not typical for the Leviathan rig and even treated emissions from malfunction situations as routine emissions" and that "Prof. Brodai's claim regarding the need for an inspection by independent professionals is puzzling - the people of the ministry are independent! Except for the professionals of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the impact of the rig on the air quality was examined by external experts and consultants as part of the TMA approval process and the permit review process.

And what do environmental organizations say?

In recent days, the Society for the Protection of Nature, Adam Teva and Dean Vacuoshan have published joint statement which supports the current location of the rig about 10 kilometers from the coast, when also The Nature and Parks Authority has published that she supports this position.

"The three organizations support the transition of the Israeli energy economy to a combined reliance on natural gas and renewable energies. Which will significantly reduce air pollution from electricity production, industry and transportation. A pollution that harms the health of citizens and causes death," the statement said. "We believe that moving the rig to the deep sea, where there is almost no environmental regulation, and the procedures are not at all supervised and transparent to the public, would be an irresponsible move, involving a heavy environmental risk to the marine environment. In fact, the main beneficiaries of moving the rig to the deep sea will be the energy companies, which will operate in the absence of regulation, supervision and transparency."

The organizations stated that they share the position of the residents in demanding "to take extra care and ensure that the safety and environmental mechanisms, in the natural gas production procedures, will be the most advanced and efficient, and that the supervision of this activity will be tight on behalf of the government and the public alike." They further add that "the state must reduce, as much as possible, the environmental consequences, including aspects of air pollution, light pollution, emissions to the sea, harm to marine life and the risk of leaks and spills of fuels and oils."

The organizations conclude and say that they "believe that natural gas should be allowed to reach our shores through the established plan, all while meeting all the strictest environmental standards."

Tzelul Association, on the other hand, announced its support for the residents' struggle, despite the fact that in the past it was a partner in the planning process that led to its current location. the organization Green trend He also announced his support for changing the location and type of the rig, and establishing a floating rig by the well: "We decided to support the fight to move the rig away from the well, believing that this is the right thing both from the aspect of public health and from the aspect of preserving the sea. From a broad perspective on the energy economy in Israel, we are convinced that it is possible to move the rig away without delaying the closing of the coal stations in Hadera, which will lead to a significant reduction of air pollution in the area."

In a green trend, they also called to "stop the development and granting of search licenses for additional databases. Any additional development means the introduction of dangerous materials for refining inside Israel and in the Haifa Bay, and the government must completely stop the export of gas so that it is not necessary to develop additional reservoirs and we can wean ourselves off fossil fuels."

In the meantime, the protest activists have set up a tent on Dor Beach next to the pipeline laying works which are continuing for the time being according to the planned schedule. If nothing changes (and in Israel this refers mainly to the decision of the High Court of Justice) the rig pillars will arrive at the designated location and be placed on the bottom 10 kilometers offshore in early 2019, the rig body will arrive and be placed in mid-2019 and the gas will begin to flow at the end of 2019.

In any case, it seems that all parties will agree that even if the Leviathan rig starts operating as planned at the end of 2019 and even if the residents' struggle eventually leads to a change in the location of the well mouth, the State of Israel must immediately prepare to protect Israel's marine environment from leaks and contamination as a result of gas drilling activity in the Mediterranean Sea. This is through the implementation of the National Plan for Preparedness and Response to Oil Pollution Incidents (TALM), including the allocation of dedicated standards for the manpower necessary for its operation. In addition, the maritime zones law that deals with Israel's economic waters (in which the development of the Harish and Tanin gas fields at the mouth of the well has already been approved) must include the supervisory and enforcement powers of the Ministry of Environmental Protection exactly as it exists in territorial waters.

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• An efficient and economical method for detecting natural gas leaks
• Everything you wanted to know about natural gas
• A tribute to the natural environment