Partners involved in the development of the Leviathan natural gas field off the coast of Israel said they were in talks with BG Group for exports to Egypt.

Ratio Oil Exploration and Delek Group Ltd. announced the signing of a non-binding letter of intent with BG Group to export liquefied natural gas from Leviathan to the latter's facilities in Idku, Egypt.

"The estimated scope of the binding agreement is for the supply of 247 billion cubic feet per annum for a period of 15 years," Delek said in a statement Sunday. "The supply of gas will take place from the floating production, storage and offloading [vessel] and planned to be connected to the LNG facility as mentioned above through a subsea pipeline."

There was no corresponding statement from BG Group.

Leviathan, with an estimated 18 trillion cubic feet of gas, should go onstream in 2016. Much of the reserves from the offshore field are already designated for exports to regional customers.

BG Group in May said that no cargoes of LNG left Egypt during the first quarter and profits from that sector of its operations were down 7 percent compared with the previous quarter.