SAN ANTONIO – Christians United for Israel, the nation’s largest pro-Israel organization, announced Monday that Zion Oil & Gas, Inc. (NASDAQ GM: “ZN”) will sponsor the Night to Honor Israel and the Ambassador’s Reception at CUFI’s 2010 Washington Summit.

The evening will feature remarks from Pastor John C. Hagee, CUFI’s Founder and National Chairman. He will be joined on the stage by keynote speaker Michael Oren, Ambassador of Israel to the United States.

“This sponsorship is very good news,” said Pastor John Hagee. ”We appreciate Zion’s support for our efforts to strengthen the US-Israel relationship.”

Christians United for Israel is the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States and one of the leading Christian grassroots movements in the world. CUFI spans all fifty states and reaches millions with its message. Each year CUFI holds hundreds of pro-Israel events in cities around the country. And each July, thousands of pro-Israel Christians gather in Washington, D.C. to participate in the CUFI Washington Summit and make their voices heard in support of Israel and the Jewish people.

Zion Oil & Gas, Inc., a Delaware corporation, explores for oil and gas in Israel in areas located on-shore between Haifa and Tel Aviv with a total area of approximately 327,000 acres in petroleum exploration rights.

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Noble's Charles Davidson

Investors should be cautious and differentiate between concepts and reality, says chairman of gas explorer.
By Eytan Avriel Haaretz

The probability that natural gas will be found in the deepwater prospects being explored by Noble Energy and Delek Group – the Leviathan prospect – is 10% to 15%. That is a probability, which by definition does not mean “sure thing.” However, says Charles Davidson, CEO of Noble Energy, he hesitates to talk about the prospect because some people in Israel relate to announcements of potential as though they were announcements of actual discoveries.

“That worries me,” he said on a panel on oil and gas exploration at a conference of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in London on Thursday: Oil exploration is a high-risk business.

What Noble does, Davidson said, is manage risk in a portfolio of opportunities. Investors should be cautious and differentiate between concepts and reality. Reality is the gas discovered at Tamar.

At the lowest part of the areas the partners looked at, there is the potential of oil, but – Davidson stressed – that doesn’t mean there is oil there. It has never been tested.

Systems of the type down there can produce oil, Davidson said, but one has to check whether a reservoir of trapped liquids of the type is actually there.

Gideon Tadmor, CEO of Delek Energy, fielded a question about the difference between investment in fossil-fuel exploration for the long-term, and as a speculative investment. In his view the difference lies in the company’s diversification: picking a company involved in one project is speculative. The more projects the company has, the better it is, Tadmor said.

One also has to check the company’s ability to actually do the job, Davidson added. For instance, to drill at Tamar, the partners had to bring in a rig from Africa. By the time the exploration was done, the cost had reached $300 million. Not every company could pull off a job like that.

On the geopolitical risk of drilling in Israeli territorial waters, given claims by Lebanese and Cypriot elements that they own a share, Davidson said Noble employs companies that analyze risks unrelated to the actual drilling, and in their opinion, Israel ranks well. Noble has been working in Israel for 12 years, Davidson said; obviously it feels comfortable about it.

“There are areas more problematic than Israel,” Tadmor added; Israel is relatively safe. “I see no geopolitical risk in our explorations.”

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Most of the data the USGS report 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.

So in today’s dollars, how much oil and gas does the USGS say the Levant Basin holds in undiscovered resources? A friend ran the numbers for me:

That’s nearly $718 Billion. Most of the Levant Basin lies within the land and territorial water of Israel. Offshore, some of the ‘undiscovered’ the natural gas has been discovered and will be powering Israel in the next few years. Onshore, the ‘undiscovered’ oil, I believe, will be discovered soon.

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Zion Oil & Gas released a company video last week in which Bill Ottaviani (Zion’s President and Chief Operating Officer) and Richard Rinberg (Zion’s Chief Executive Officer) explain why Zion Oil & Gas, Inc. has decided to establish Zion Drilling, Inc. and purchase Aladdin Middle East Ltd’s 2,000 horsepower drilling rig, as soon as practicable. Filming took place in both Israel and Turkey, and gives us a chance to learn the strategic thinking behind some of Zion’s business decisions.

The film was shot and produced by British filmmaker Tom Boulting. Boulting’s company, Charter Films, Ltd. is also working on the full length documentary, “49:1 The Zion Story”. News on the making of the film can be found at www.zionthemovie.com.

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Israeli Natural Gas Find Keeps On Getting Bigger But Could Ignite Trouble

Vosizneias Tel Aviv – Israel’s natural gas bonanza in the eastern Mediterranean just keep getting bigger, with reserves currently pegged at around 25 trillion cubic feet.

That’s enough to guarantee the Jewish state, dependent on imported energy since it was founded in 1948, energy security for at least two decades.

The strikes at three fields, dubbed Tamar, Dalat and Leviathan, could even turn Israel into a gas exporter and transform its economy. There are indications that there’s oil down there as well.

But the offshore finds may become a casus belli (case for war) as Lebanon, Israel’s northern neighbor and longtime battleground, lays claim to the gas fields as well.

Lebanon’s As-Safir newspaper reported June 8 that the biggest field found off Israel, Leviathan, extends north into Lebanese waters and could well aggravate tensions between the countries.

Under the headline “Israel prepares to steal gas fields in Lebanon’s waters,” the leftist daily said if Israel tried to siphon gas from Lebanese territory, Beirut would be forced to defend its resources.

One of Hezbollah’s top leaders, Hashem Safieddine, head of the Iranian-backed movement’s executive council, has declared it won’t allow Israel to “loot” Lebanese gas resources.

Israel’s military chiefs say Hezbollah currently possesses around 45,000 missiles and rockets, which could be fired at Israel’s emerging energy infrastructure centered on the port of Haifa.

The city was repeatedly hit by Hezbollah rockets during the 34-day war with Israel in July and August 2006.

These days, Hezbollah purportedly has long-range weapons that have greater accuracy and carry more destructive warheads than those used in 2006. These are capable of hitting just about anywhere in Israel.

In the event of renewed hostilities, and both sides are talking tough again, Israel’s energy installations would be prime targets.

Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri, has urged the Beirut government to move swiftly to start its own offshore exploration or risk Israel claiming whatever resources there are.

“Israel is racing to make the case a fait accompli and was quick to present itself as an oil emirate, ignoring the fact that, according to the maps, the deposits extend into Lebanese waters,” said Berri.

The speaker, who has submitted a parliamentary bill to launch exploration of Lebanon’s potential offshore reserves, declared: “Lebanon must take immediate action to defend its financial, political, economic and sovereign rights.”

Israeli officials insist that the gas fields lie within Israeli territorial waters.

However, the liberal Haaretz daily noted Tuesday, “Israel has yet to declare its exclusive economic zone, though this usually applies to what in the sea, such as fish, and not what lies under the continental shelf.”

It quoted Professor Moshe Hirsch of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, an expert in international law, as saying that problem could arise when the continental shelf is shared by more than one country.

But he maintained the gas lies squarely in Israel’s sector of the continental shelf and so there was no need top declare an exclusive economic zone.

The first strikes were made early this year at the Dalit field off Hadera, south of Haifa by a consortium headed by Noble Energy, a U.S. company with headquarters in Houston, which is working with three Israeli firms.

Tamar, 50 miles east of Haifa, was found in April. Last week Nobel raised its original estimate of the field’s size by 33 percent to 8.4 trillion cubic feet of gas.

But then came the discovery of Leviathan, double the size of Tamar at an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of gas, further off the coast.

Nobel said that total offshore reserves could top 30 trillion cubic feet, double Britain’s giant gas fields in the North Sea, with a conservative value of some $300 billion. Nobel is moving a drilling platform from the Gulf of Mexico to step up exploration.

Gas production is to begin in 2012. Israel is planning to build a liquefied natural gas plant near Haifa but it probably won’t go online until 2015.

The gas finds, particularly Leviathan, which may turn out to be even bigger, are “nothing short of a geopolitical gamechanger,” Gal Luft, executive director of the U.S.-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, wrote in Haaretz Sunday.

“Altogether the basin the eastern Mediterranean … could contain an amount of gas equivalent to one-fifth of U.S. natural gas reserves.”

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Zion Oil & Gas Founder John Brown’s book The Oil of Israel: Prophecy Being Fulfilled will be released from the printer on Friday June 11. In The Oil of Israel: Prophecy Being Fulfilled, Brown tells the story of his faith his journey and the vision he believes G-d has put on his life: to discover Israel’s oil.

In the Preface Brown writes:

“So, why did God choose Zion to discover the oil in Israel? The answer is I don’t know why, but He did, and I believe I was told by God that it was to fulfill His promises to Israel (Isaiah 14:24) (Zechariah 1:17) and to bless the body of Christ. (Isaiah 23:18 NIV) and Zion Oil only exists because of God’s faithfulness to Israel (Psalms 36:5, 89:1-5) and not because of my faith (Isaiah 25:1).”

The Oil of Israel: Prophecy Being Fulfilled will be available in bookstores and on Amazon this summer. To order copies now, directly from www.oilinisrael.net, click here.

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Turkey and Israel Flags Fly at Zion Well Site

According to Zion CEO Richard Rinberg,  recent political tensions between Turkey and Israel are not affecting Zion’s work program or future plans. Zion Oil & Gas operates it exploration company in Northern Israel using a drilling rig and crew owned by Turkish drilling company AME. Future plans call for a new company, Zion Drilling, to to be formed between Zion Oil & Gas and AME.

Zion Oil & Gas has just released a corporate video detailing their exploration efforts and plans for the new drilling company. To view the video click here or on the photo at the top of this article.

In a recent letter to stockholders, Rinberg states that in spite of international tensions, Zion Oil and AME will conduct ‘business as usual’.

“I received a telephone call from a concerned stockholder asking about the recent event offshore Israel and its effect on the relationship between Zion Oil & Gas, Inc (in Israel) and Aladdin Middle East Ltd (in Turkey).

I have been in contact with Cetin Mumcuoglu, the General Manager of Aladdin Middle East Ltd, in Ankara, Turkey, and he is not concerned. International incidents will occur from time to time, but business continues without interruption.

He commented to me, “ We will continue with our business relationship even more strongly.”

Zion Oil & Gas and AME have excellent relations based on mutual respect and trust, so we expect that recent events will have little effect on our continuing business relationship.

Additionally, our Caesarea office and our petroleum exploration areas are in Northern Israel, well away from the Gaza area in Southern Israel, so everything is proceeding as normal.

At present, we do not anticipate that the recent event will have any material adverse effect on our business.”

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Kibbutz Ma'anit, Northern Israel

According to company CEO Richard Rinberg, Zion plans to start drilling the Ma’anit-Joseph #3 (MJ#3) in August. Zion signed an agreement with the land owner, Kibbutz Ma’anit, for access to the well site and continues the permitting process with various Israeli state agencies.

Rinberg wrote Zion share holders in his May 28 update:

“Further to our ongoing exploration work on the Ma’anit geological structure, we are moving forward with the required permitting and planning for the M-J #3 well (targeted for the ‘deep’ Permian geologic structure). (Deut. 33:13-16)
We are well underway in the process of assembling the various product and service suppliers needed to drill this new well. As reported last time, we instituted a bidding and selection process designed to ensure that we use the best available resources, offering Zion the most favorable overall value. Based on early vendor indications, we anticipate a strong response to our RFQs (Request For Quotes) and have already begun receiving price quotes. All price quotes are expected by month-end and the final vendor selection will follow shortly thereafter.
Permitting for the new well continues to proceed favorably with the recent achievement of a very significant milestone: agreement with Kibbutz Ma’anit granting us access to Kibbutz land where we desire to drill the MJ-3 well.
In Israel, ‘permitting a well’ is a very lengthy and complicated process, as permits are required from various authorities, including the: Water, Fire, Health, Military, District Planning Commission, Environmental Protection, Israel Land, National Infrastructure, Civil Aviation and National Transport Authorities… and of course, the owner of the land.
With the Kibbutz agreement now secured, we are fine-tuning the well site layout and beginning preliminary plans for construction of the site.
The layout and construction of the well site is a project in of itself, as it involves the careful placement of storage containers, offices and living quarters, equipment and liquid storage facilities, power units, and piping all efficiently arranged around the drilling rig and large liquid containment (“mud”) pits while allowing adequate space for the safe movement of personnel and heavy equipment.
As the M-J #3 well site is near residential and commercial areas, we are working diligently with local and governmental groups, to ensure the site will meet (or in some cases exceed) all applicable environmental and safety requirements.
Actual well site construction can begin once we have received all necessary permits. Depending on weather and equipment availability, we anticipate site construction to be completed within one month after being started. Given the progress we are making in both planning and permitting for the M-J #3 well, we remain optimistic that drilling will begin this summer.”

Plans for the new Ma’anit-Joseph #3 well were initiated in April after production testing determined that commercial quantities of gas and oil were not present in Zion’s nearby Ma’anit-Rehoboth #2 well.

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Zion's Ma'anit-Rehoboth #2

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Dallas, Texas and Caesarea, Israel – May 18, 2010 – Zion Oil & Gas, Inc. (NASDAQ GM: ZN) reported today that the Israeli Petroleum Commissioner has awarded the company a one-year extension on each of its petroleum exploration licenses, the Joseph License and the Asher-Menashe License.

Zion’s “Asher-Menashe License” covers an area of approximately 78,824 acres located on the Israeli coastal plain and the Mt. Carmel range between Caesarea in the south and Haifa in the north. The Asher-Menashe License had an initial three-year term, from June 10, 2007 to June 9, 2010. On May 17, 2010, Zion received notification from the Israeli Petroleum Commissioner extending the term of the Asher-Menashe License until June 9, 2011.

Zion’s “Joseph License” covers approximately 83,272 acres on the Israeli coastal plain south of the Asher-Menashe License between Caesarea in the north and Netanya in the south. The Joseph License had an initial three-year term, from October 11, 2007 to October 10, 2010. On April 22, 2010, Zion received notification from the Israeli Petroleum Commissioner extending the term of the Joseph License until October 10, 2011.

Richard Rinberg, Zion’s Chief Executive Officer, commented that, “In 2010, we plan to drill a new well, the Ma’anit-Joseph #3 well, on our Joseph License and also acquire new field seismic on both our Asher-Menashe License and our Issachar-Zebulun Permit. We remain excited about the possibility of recovering hydrocarbons on our license and permit areas, onshore Israel, especially due to the U.S. Geological Survey report, published in April 2010, containing their assessment that there may be 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable undiscovered oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin, as all of Zion’s exploration rights fall within the area of the Levant Basin.”

Zion’s common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “ZN” and Zion’s warrants trade under the symbol “ZNWAW”.

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.

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Bontan has closed its previously announced non brokered private placement financing, pursuant to which it has issued 37,750,000 Units at a price of US $0.20 per Unit to raise aggregate gross proceeds of US $7,550,000. Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company and one five-year term purchase warrant. Each warrant entitles the holder to acquire one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.35 per share. There is a call provision should the closing price of the Company’s common shares exceed US $1.00 for 20 consecutive business days. All securities issued in the financing are subject to a statutory hold period.

Certain proceeds from the offering have been used with respect to the Company’s 11% net working interest in the two drilling licenses in offshore Israel: Sarah and Myra. The Company’s ownership of theses licenses is held through its 76.8% owned subsidiary: Israel Petroleum.

The Company reported that all seismic data relating to the two licenses have now been fully acquired from Western Geco International Ltd, a Schlumberger group company, who were paid the balance of their fees of US$ 10.5 million. All of the seismic data is now being processed.

Bontan also reported that it is preparing an application to list on the Canadian National Stock Exchange. The CNSX is an innovative new stock exchange for trading the securities of public companies. The Company must meet all requirements of the Exchange prior to any approval.

Kam Shah, CEO of Bontan, commented, “We are very pleased with the progress our Company has made over the last seven months. We have met all of our financial obligations in relation to the offshore Israeli project and look forward to further developmental activities in both the Sarah and Myra licenses. We have received tremendous support from our existing shareholders as well as from new sophisticated investors who participated in our recent private placement. The recent reports from the US Geological Survey indicating that there are some 1.7 Billion barrels of recoverable oil and 122 Trillion cubic feet of gas in the 83000 square kilometer Levant Basin Province augurs well for our project. In addition the fact that the offshore area has also recently attracted the attention of various energy giants including Gazprom, bodes extremely well for our project. Identifying an international driller and operator will enable us and our joint venture partners to proceed with the plans to drill in both the licenses. It should be a very exciting year ahead for our company.

About the Project Area

The Offshore Israel Project comprises two Licenses – Sarah and Myra – covering approximately 310 square miles and is located in the Levantine Basin near the recent 6.3 TCF Tamar 1, Tamar 2, and the Dalit natural gas discoveries by Noble Energy Inc.

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