Chevron sees East Med value

The major was attracted first by Noble’s gas assets. This could be promising for breaking the deadlock on the rocky road to monetising the region’s finds

The timeline of Chevron’s $5bn takeover offer for US independent Noble Energy makes for interesting reading, particularly for the nascent Eastern Mediterranean gas industry. The major’s announcement of the deal in July focused on both Israeli and US Permian and DJ basin assets, but an August SEC filing makes it clear that its interest was first in East Med gas. Chevron’s general manager for M&A, Frank Mount, first approached a Noble executive in October, the filing records, to say that it “had been monitoring Noble Energy’s progress in the Eastern Mediterranean”. Mount then “indicated that Chevron was contemplating entry into the upstream sector in Egypt and indicated potential interest