Sunday, January 24, 2010

Signs of Oil in the Negev


Hillel Fendel Signs of Oil in the Negev
A7 News

A joint venture near the Negev city of Arad has produced “preliminary indications” of an oil reserve, the drillers announced.The venture is a partnership of Zerach Oil Exploration Ltd., which owns 50%, and Avner Oil Ltd. and Delek Drilling Ltd, which own 25% each. The three companies notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) on Sunday that they had found oil at the Tzuk Tamrur 4 oil exploration well, west of the Dead Sea. They emphasized that they do not yet know if the quantities found are commercial.

The Tzuk Tamrur 4 drilling began three months ago, after seismic studies indicated that 6.6 million barrels of high-quality oil could be found there. The drilling has reached a depth of 2,040 meters, and the partners plan to keep on going until they reach 2,150 meters.

"When the drilling is complete,” the partners stated, “electrical logs [a form of underground testing - ed will be conducted, which will take several days, after which an announcement will be made, including whether the partners decide if it is worthwhile to carry out well production tests."

Just last month, the Givot Olam Oil Exploration company announced it had found a very large amount of oil and gas below the city of Rosh HaAyin in central Israel. Recently, Noble Energy said it had discovered more than 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea, about 90 kilometers from Haifa.

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