USGS Says Israel Has 1.7 Billion Barrels of Oil

April 12, 2010 by admin

The United States Geological Service released a report last week on Israel’s Levant Basin, stating that the area contains 1.689 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 122.4 billion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas. The Levant Basin lies both onshore and offshore and includes most of middle and northern Israel and coastal Lebanon and Syria. The basin includes the exploration areas of Noble Energy offshore and Zion Oil & Gas onshore.

Although the USGS released its report just last week, most of the data it contained came from research conducted between 2000 and 2008 by Dr. Michael Gardosh, a researcher at the Geophysical Institute of Israel, and Dr. Yehezkel Druckman, who until a few years ago was Petroleum Israel’s Commissioner. Dr. Druckman now serves on the Zion Oil & Gas Board of Directors.

Monday, April 12, 2010 Israel Today Staff

Israel to become center of new 'oil and gas rush'

A top US energy industry expert believes Israel is going to soon experience an "oil and gas rush" by major Western energy development companies.

Speaking to the Israeli financial newspaper Globes, Fred Zeidman said the recent discovery of a massive natural gas field off Israel's Mediterranean coast had drawn the attention of every major Western energy company.

Israeli companies Delek and Isramco have already tapped the natural gas field, together with British energy giant Noble Energy. Zeidman noted that quite often, "as soon as Noble goes to a place, many other companies follow in its wake."

That could mean an enormous economic boom for Israel and its transformation overnight into a major international energy exporter.

The natural gas field in the Levant Basin (the western Mediterranean) is estimated to hold 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, making it the largest natural gas resource ever found. The area is also believed to contain at least 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil.