Jerusalem (Platts)--26Dec2012/1148 am EST/1648 GMT

Israel's Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the country's leading environmental group, which was seeking to have the Energy and Water Ministry's new onshore oil drilling regulations overturned, the court said in a ruling published Tuesday.

The ruling will enable Givot Olam Oil Exploration to proceed with its plans to drill additional wells at the Meged field, 20 km northeast of Tel Aviv, which is Israel's only producing oil field.

The Israel Union for Environmental Defense argued that the new regulations would allow applicants for onshore drilling permits to bypass the Environmental Protection Ministry while reducing the power of the National Planning Commission to regulate the approval process.

In September, Givot Olam signed a contract with Romanian driller SC Dafora to drill two new wells at the Meged field, which produces about 800 b/d currently.

Last month, Israel's National Planning and Building Commission approved a request to drill an additional three wells.

Work on the drilling program is scheduled to start in mid-February. SC Dafora said the first two wells, Meged-6 and Meged-7, would be drilled to a depth of 5,000 meters.

In June, the company released results of an independent appraisal which put Meged's proven and probable reserves at 10.5 million barrels. The figure is about half the previous estimate and would place the value of the reservoir at about $145 million.

Israel imports nearly all its crude consumption of about 11 million mt/year, mostly from Russia, Azerbaijan and other former Soviet states.

--Neal Sandler, newsdesk@platts.com --Edited by Tamsin Carlisle, tamsin_carlisle@platts.com