I just read a hugely entertaining article about oil exploration in Israel-how con men (using religion)m have fleeced investors out of millions of dollars. Fundamentalist Christians seem obsessed with the idea that Israel sits on vast oil supplies-yet, the country has been explored , and most petroleum geologists rate the oil potentiai as poor. My question: Israel would have a LOT of motivation to find oil-if they had it! The fact that nothing has been found so far-wouldn’t this be a big clue that you shouldn’t invest your life savings into this? yet, the suckers keep coming.
Your questions about Israel’s oil reserves can be answered here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/East_Med/Full.html
(Public domain information)
Although oil exploration in Israel has not proven successful in the past (current output is about 100 bbl/d from six fields), more than twenty small independent firms are active in hydrocarbon exploration throughout the country. Israel’s Petroleum Commission has estimated that the country could contain 5 billion barrels of oil reserves, most likely located underneath natural gas reserves.
Overall, more than 470 oil wells have been drilled in Israel since the 1940s, with little success despite the country’s location in the oil-rich Paleozoic petroleum system stretching from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean basin. Most recently, in May 2004, the Givat Olam Company reported a find of 980 million barrels of oil reserves at the offshore Meged-4 well near Kfar Sava, north of Tel Aviv. However, the company expects only 20 percent of the new reserves to be extractable. In April 2005, Zion Oil & Gas, Inc., based in Dallas and Tel Aviv, began drilling at the Ma’anit-1 well, located approximately 37.5 miles north-northeast of Tel Aviv. Operations were temporarily suspended in November 2005, although they are scheduled to restart in late-2006. Zion Oil holds exploration rights to more than 98,000 acres in central Israel until April 2007. U.S.-based Ness Energy International is also active in exploration in Israel.
Israel has sizeable deposits of oil shale, an estimated 14-15 billion metric tons and 600 million tons recoverable. Oil shale, considered a non-conventional source of petroleum, is sedimentary rock containing organic material from which liquid fuel may be extracted, at a rate of perhaps 15-17 gallons of oil per ton of shale. Most of Israel’s shale resources are located in the Rotem basin region of the northern Negev desert, near the Dead Sea. A minimal quantity of shale is burned directly for industrial power production. Currently Israel is trying to increase interest in production of shale resources. In consideration is a proposal from Haifa-based AFSK Hov Tom, to build a $270-million oil shale plant in Mishor Rotem that could produce an estimated 60,000 bbl/d (30 percent of Israel’s imports) from six million tones of shale and two million tonnes of bitumen (from the Ashdod refinery). AFSK owns a patented process that employs catalytic conversion under low pressure, making production less energy intensive. However, oil shale processing is a water-intensive process and Israel’s water scarcity remains a challenge to large-scale shale development.