Lebanon Energy Minister Gebran Bassil said the government aims to invite tenders to explore for offshore gas within three months

Lebanon Energy Minister Gebran Bassil said the government aims to invite tenders to explore for offshore gas within three months adding, “we are on the right track to start offshore drilling.”

“We now have everything required for an oil company to have enough information to begin its activities, our target is to begin within three months”, Bassil told Agence France Presse. He said Lebanon hoped to have exploration contracts with international oil companies signed and sealed by the end of the year.
  
The energy minister said European, US, Chinese and Russian firms had already shown serious interest in drilling off Lebanon's coast. "Every big oil company has begun initial talks to explore offshore drilling and bought data to that end," he said.

He downplayed a possible conflict with the Zionist enemy over the potential reserves. "We are working on making potential drilling a factor of stability, not a factor of conflict or instability," Bassil said. "I believe that Israel has no interest in threatening our oil resources," he added.
 
"It has resources itself -- it's a balance of power, and Lebanon now has enough power to protect its own resources."

On the fifth anniversary of 2006 July War victory, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah warned Israel against any attempt to plunder Lebanon’s offshore gas and oil reserves in its territorial waters. “Whoever harms our future oil facilities in Lebanese territorial waters, its own facilities will be targeted,” his eminence said.