Time for the Levant's moment in the sun?

Politics have thwarted the region’s offshore promise so far, but the Zohr discovery has revived momentum

THE Levant Basin, stretching across most of the East Mediterranean from Egypt in the south to Turkey in the north, is hardly a new play. In 2010 the US Geological Sur­vey said it could hold technically recover­able resources of 122 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.7bn barrels of oil. Israel made the early running, when US firm Noble Energy found a string of world-class gas deposits. Then politics in­tervened, stopping Israel from launching a liquefied natural gas business. But the frontier basin is getting another shot at the big time. Gas finds off Egypt and Israel are persuading explorers to look at it more seriously – at least as soon as their capex budgets bulk up again. In Egypt, the sc