ISRAEL: Israeli company strikes oil near the Dead Sea

Record ID: 343949

  • Title: ISRAEL: Israeli company strikes oil near the Dead Sea
  • Date: 10th October 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) ELI TANNENBAUM, GINKO'S GEOLOGICAL ADVISOR SAYING: "Our evaluation indicates that in this land that we are just standing here and looking at the nice scenery there are reserves of order of magnitude of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil."
  • Embargoed: 25th October 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVA4URUSWGLRYFS60R6KKCRXCIL3
  • Story Text: An Israeli drilling company renewed Israel's hope of becoming another oil producing nation in the Middle East when it struck oil near the Dead Sea for the first time in a decade.
    Ginko Oil Exploration's estimate of the size of potential lifetime production from the reservoir at 120,000 barrels would fall far short of meeting the Jewish state's demand for even one day -- about 220,000 barrels.
    "We haven't produced yet because it's only tests so it's small quantities but we expect to pump something in around a hundred to two hundred barrels a day, which is again, not a big quantity but...," said Eli Tannenbaum, Ginko's geological advisor at the site on Monday (October 9).
    The firm said that the specific site was only the first of a series of drilling projects it planned in the region, the lowest point on the earth's surface.
    Tannenbaum said that Ginko has permits to look for oil around the Dead Sea area, and that it plans to test at least ten more locations in the coming years.
    Living in a neighbourhood that is home to top world oil exporters, which are also long standing foes, Israel has long hoped that it might discover crude in commercially exploitable quantities. Saudi Arabia alone produces over nine million bpd.
    Although Israel has been producing natural gas for years, it remains dependent on imported oil, mostly from Russia and Azerbaijan.
    High world oil prices have been a spur to Ginko and other firms to search for reserves. Ginko said it had struck oil at a depth of 2,200 metres (7,500 feet).
    Israel's petroleum commissioner, Yaakov Mimran, told Reuters that until the late 1980's the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructures was so eager to find Israel an independent source of energy that it used to share half of the expenses for any searches for oil or natural gas.
    "The policy of the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructures, led by Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer is to ensure as many varying options of energy resources, supplies and suppliers to Israel in order to make sure that the supply won't be effected by any kind of problem and crisis in one specific resource," he added.
    Future drilling by Ginko is scheduled to begin at a reservoir 1.6 km (one mile) north of the site in 2007.
    Tannenbaum estimated that one could contains up to six million barrels of oil, and that under the whole area lies a huge amount of oil just waiting to be uncovered.
    "Our evaluation indicates that in this land that we are just standing here and looking at the nice scenery there are reserves of order of magnitude of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil," he said.
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