February or March 2009. That’s when the draft law regarding offshore oil and gas exploration that Lebanon has been stuck on since 2002 should finally be ready. At least that’s what Alain Tabourian, the country’s energy and water minister said in October. Once it is approved by cabinet and parliament, the law is expected to give a serious push to the country’s would-be hydrocarbon industry.

Petroleum exploration isn’t new to Lebanon. In fact, seven wells that were drilled on Lebanese soil between 1947 and 1967 struck oil. The late Ghassan Qanso, a prominent geological expert, also publicized a number of studies that suggested abundant quantities of gas and oil may lie beneath Lebanon’s territorial waters. It was only in the 1990s – after the dust of the 30-year civil war had settled – that Lebanese authorities began to look more seriously at exploration.

In early 2003, Spectrum Energy & Information Technology (SEIT), a British firm specializing in seismic trace scanning and digital reconstruction, completed a survey of 5,000 square-kilometers of Lebanon’s coastal waters.

It concluded that there were potential offshore hydrocarbon deposits. And it reinforced previous findings from a survey the company had conducted in 2000, which covered the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus. Seismic studies by other firms have corroborated that Lebanon’s seabed may hold significant crude oil and natural gas deposits.

In 2004, oilfield services provider Schlumberger was assigned to head up the bidding process for exploration rights. But before the year was out, the Ministry of Energy and Water went through a personnel change – with some employees being arrested on corruption charges – and exploration negotiations stopped.

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