OREANDA-NEWS.  Edison, the Italian utility owned by EDF, is in talks to buy two Israeli gas fields from U.S. explorer Noble Energy and Israel's Delek Drilling, which are estimated to hold up to 70 billion cubic metres in total, two sources with knowledge of the talks said.

The Israeli and U.S. companies developing the massive Leviathan natural gas field off Israel's coast have to sell their stake in two smaller fields to avoid being branded a cartel by the anti-trust authority.

Edison is in talks to buy the Tanin and Karish fields offshore Israel, the sources said.

Edison was not immediately available for a comment.

"The fields are between 50 and 70 Bcm together, but a survey has to be concluded first to understand the exact size of the resource," one of the sources said.

Noble Energy and partner Delek Drilling have jointly discovered deposits of 29 trillion cubic feet offshore Israel since 2009.