I traveled to Israel last week to work with Charter Films Limited, a UK film company. We (they) were doing preliminary shooting for a film about Zion Oil’s search for oil in Israel. Tom Boulting, Charter’s CEO met Richard Rinberg, Zion’s CEO on a flight to London a few months back and Richard shared the Zion Oil story with Tom. Tom was fascinated. As a filmmaker, Tom saw great possibilities for a documentary on Zion Oil; but after spending a few days with Richard and Zion Founder John Brown at Zion’s drilling sites in Israel he realized that a sixty minute documentary could only tell half the story. Tom started thinking ‘movie’.

John Brown at Caesarea Aquaduct

As the ‘oil in Israel’ story teller up to this point, I was invited to spend last week with Tom and his cameraman, Jim, ‘on site’ while they filmed preliminary footage for both the documentary and a possible feature length film. I was able to share the ‘back-story’ with Tom and Jim, both on and off camera. They even christened me into the ‘film crew’ on location by letting me hold the boom mike during interviews and taught me some movie making lingo. It was a great experience personally, but more exciting was the realization that the world will soon witness the Zion Oil story through documentary on the small screen (TV) and (one day) on the big screen as a feature length movie.

Steve Spillman, Rookie "Boom Technician"

There’s a lot of work to be done now by Charter Films, editing footage and preparing a short ‘promo’ piece to share with potential film partners. Speaking of ‘promo’ pieces, Charter Films is planning to join us at the 2010 National Religious Broadcasters’ Convention next February in Nashville to debut a sneak peek of “Zion – The Movie”.

Next week we’ll have http://zionthemovie.com online. By the time you’re about done with that left-over turkey, you’ll be able to visit the new website for great pictures, meet the director and stay up to date on the making of “Zion – The Movie”. Of course we’ll always give you the latest news here at http://oilinisrael.net.

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Zion’s move from the NYSE’s AMEX exchange to the NASDAQ Global exchange will give the company access to a much wider financial market.

Zion has demonstrated that they can compete in the global financial market by continuing to hold their stock value and raise significant capital in the midst of the worst financial melt down since the Great Depression. In short, people believe in Zion Oil and the financial world has taken notice.

About Zion Oil & Gas, Inc. (ZN):

Zion Oil & Gas, a Delaware corporation, explores for oil and gas in Israel in areas located on-shore between Haifa and Tel Aviv. It currently holds two petroleum exploration licenses, the Joseph and the Asher-Menashe Licenses, between Netanya, in the south, and Haifa, in the north, covering a total of approximately 162,000 acres and the Issachar-Zebulun Permit Area, adjacent to and to the east of Zion’s Asher-Menashe license area, covering approximately 165,000 acres.

Zion’s total petroleum exploration rights area is approximately 327,000 acres.

About NASDAQ OMX:

The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. is the world’s largest exchange company. It delivers trading, exchange technology and public company services across six continents, with over 3,900 listed companies. NASDAQ OMX Group offers multiple capital raising solutions to companies around the globe, including its U.S. listings market; NASDAQ OMX Nordic, NASDAQ OMX Baltic, including First North; and the U.S. 144A sector. The company offers trading across multiple asset classes including equities, derivatives, debt, commodities, structured products and ETFs.

NASDAQ OMX Group technology supports the operations of over 70 exchanges, clearing organizations and central securities depositories in more than 50 countries. NASDAQ OMX Nordic and NASDAQ OMX Baltic are not legal entities but describe the common offering from NASDAQ OMX Group exchanges in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Iceland, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius. For more information about NASDAQ OMX, visit http://www.nasdaqomx.com.

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(Deuteronomy 33:19)

 Noble Energy (see my earlier post: http://www.oilinisrael.net/oil-in-israel-articles/more-detail-about-the-haifa-offshore-gas-exploration) has discovered “three massive gas fields” just off the coast of Haifa. This field is much richer, the natural gas reservoirs much larger than Noble energy expected. This find alone could be enough natural gas to power Israel’s electrical plants and supply it’s commercial and domestic natrual gas needs for the foreseeable future – and still with enough for export to other countries. Yitzhak Tshuva, owner of the Delek Group Ltd, a partner in the Tamar #1 well, called the discovery “one of the biggest in the world,” promising that the find would present a historic land mark in the economic independence of Israel.

The Jerusalem Post and many other news organizations announced the discovery to the people of Israel and to the world this morning. Below are excerpts of the JP article you can read it in its entirety at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1232265973374.

Jerusalem Post Sunday January 18, 2009

Three massive  gas reservoirs have been discovered 80 kilometers off the Haifa coast, at the Tamar prospect, Noble Energy Inc. announced on Sunday.

The Tamar -1 well, located in approximately 5,500 feet of water, was drilled to a total depth of 16,076 feet. The thickness and quality of the reservoirs found were greater than anticipated at the location.

Charles D. Davidson, Noble Energy’s chairman, president and CEO, said in an announcement that his company was “extremely excited by the results. This is one of the most significant prospects that we have ever tested and appears to be the largest discovery in the company’s history.”

Speaking on Army Radio Sunday morning, an exhilarated Yitzhak Tshuva, owner of the Delek Group Ltd, one of the owners of the well, called the discovery “one of the biggest in the world,” promising that the find would present a historic land mark in the economic independence of Israel.

“I have no doubt that this is a holiday for the State of Israel. We will no longer be dependent [on foreign sources] for our gas, and will even export. We are dealing with inconceivably huge quantities; Israel now has a solution for the future generations,” Tshuva added.

An ecstatic Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said before the weekly cabinet meeting that the discovery was a “historic” one and could “change the face of Israeli industry.”

Production testing at Tamar will be performed after the well is completed. Noble Energy and its partners may keep the rig to drill up to two additional wells in the basin. Pending positive test results, one well could be an appraisal at Tamar.

Noble Energy operates the well with a 36 percent working interest. Other interest owners in the well are Israeli companies Isramco Negev 2, Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Dor Gas Exploration.

Following the announcement of the discover, shares of Delek Drilling jumped up 80%, while shares of Isramco Negev 2 skyrocketed by an unprecedented 120 percent.

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Here’s the Financial Times excerpt:

“The FT reports output from the world’s oilfields is declining faster than previously thought, the first authoritative public study of the biggest fields shows. Without extra investment to raise production, the natural annual rate of output decline is 9.1%, the International Energy Agency says in its annual report, the World Energy Outlook, a draft of which has been obtained by the Financial Times. The findings suggest the world will struggle to produce enough oil to make up for steep declines in existing fields, such as those in the North Sea, Russia and Alaska, and meet long-term de­mand. The effort will become even more acute as prices fall and investment decisions are delayed. The IEA, the oil watchdog, forecasts that China, India and other developing countries’ demand will require investments of $360bn each year until 2030. The agency says even with investment, the annual rate of output decline is 6.4 per cent. The decline will not necessarily be felt in the next few years because demand is slowing down, but with the expected slowdown in investment the eventual effect will be magnified, oil executives say”

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ISRAEL IS OIL-RICH, EXPLORATION-POOR

Sir-

As a geologist and managing director of various oil exploration companies in Israel over the past 20 years, I was quoted in several paragraphs of Michael Arnold’s article “Slippery dreams” (January 22). I would like to amend and add certain facts as follows:

The oil potential of Israel was evaluated twice at the request of the Israeli government. In 1962, Lewis Weeks, the former chief geologist at Exxon, determined that “the potential ultimate oil resources of Israel should be of the order of 500 to 2,000 million barrels from primary recovery… The figures do not include gas… which may equal 50% and upwards of that of the oil.”

In 1979, James Wilson, former chief geologist or Shell (US) determined that on-shore Israel (the off-shore and the Dead Sea Rift Valley were not included) has a potential of330 to 2,000 million barrels of recoverable oil.

Both these experts have been president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Since the Wilson evaluation in 1979, extensive data have been accumulated relating to on-shore and off-shore Israel. From this data, it becomes clear that the total may exceed 2,000 million barrels.

Israel’s per annum consumption amounts to about 70 million barrels.

The 1962 evaluation predicted that “the finding and recovery of this oil and gas may require many decades” -and evidently assumed that such efforts would be made. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

It is most likely that this failing is one of the main reasons why the forecast potential has not yet been discovered.

YOSSI LANGOTSKY

Herzliya

 2,000 million barrels? That’s 2 billion barrels. That’s Exxon and Shell saying it. So the question isn’t “does Israel have any oil?” The question is, “If the big boys have known about this for so long, why haven’t they done anything about it?” The answer, unfortunately, is pretty easy. They’ve got larger, established assets in the Arab world and the Arab world has told them, “If you do business with Israel, don’t bother doing business here.” That’s what the 1973 oil embargo was all about.

What’s Israel’s answer? Keep supporting those who are exploring for the oil they know is there. What can we do about it? Stop wondering if Israel really has any oil. It does. If you want to see it come to the surface, support the exploration already in country. This piece of history will come about, and it won’t be long until it does. Those involved in that effort are destined to be written in to the story of Israel’s future.

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According to The Jordan Times:

After years of disappointment, many came to accept that the Kingdom is home to little or no oil reserves.

But with recent claims of the possibility of Jordanian oil, and a parliamentary committee examining the issue, the subject has been elevated to a national discourse steeped in controversy and unanswered questions.

The issue dates back to 1996, when the Natural Resources Authority (NRA) signed a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with US company Trans-Global to explore for oil in the Dead Sea area….

Over the next few years, the firm dug four wells at Isaal and Wadi Mujib, some thousands of metres deep, in hope that the rift valley would yield any positive results.

According to the company, logging data and technical studies of the wells revealed huge oil traps of hydrocarbons with significant commercial potential and large oil pays, the solid technical indicators of a major oil discovery.

On August 15, 2005, as per the PSA, the company said it officially informed the NRA of its discovery, but the authority declined to review the studies, according to Trans-Global, which felt there was little interest on the part of the NRA administration to follow through.

“This is the exact opposite of how any petroleum ministry in the world would respond to the discovery of oil,” Trans-Global General Manager Nazeeh Abraham told The Jordan Times.

“We claimed a significant oil discovery, and instead of developing it they denied it. We then faced obstructions every step on the way, preventing us from starting a large accelerated drilling development programme,” he added.

Frustrated with the lack of interest from the authority, Trans-Global announced the discovery during the 9th International Geological Conference of the Jordanian Geologists Association in Amman in April last year.

The announcement created an uproar and came as a shock to the NRA.

“They went public without ever informing us, which is a breach of the PSA. We were only told of a technical discovery, which doesn’t mean much in the oil business,” NRA Director Maher Hijazin told The Jordan Times.

“We have all the documents to prove that there is no discovery,” he stressed.

Industry experts

Although the announcement was shocking to many, it came as no surprise to Jordanian Geologists Association (JGA) President Khaled Shawabkeh.

He claimed that the NRA drilled at least five wells in the area in the 1990s, and found oil in different quantities, although their commercial viability was not verified.

Lack of support and technical difficulties brought on by the area’s topography prevented the authority from any further exploration, and the subject was shelved, he said.

“In my view, Trans-Global has made an oil discovery. The quantity and commercial quality of this discovery should now be explored,” the JGA president stressed.

Weatherford, Reeves Logging Ltd., one of 14 third-party companies that performed assessment studies for Trans-Global on the Isaal and Wadi Mujib wells, said it could not confirm or deny the existence of oil in the area, as their only purpose was to log data, not analyse it.

Another industry source, however, told The Jordan Times that the independent third-party studies pointed to “a strong possibility” of commercially viable oil in the Dead Sea area.

You can read the full article by clicking here

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