Ma’anit Rehoboth #2 Approaches Ultimate Target Depth
August 3, 2009 by admin
Zion Oil's Perry, Rinberg and Brown with Israel's Minister of National Infrastructures Dr. Landau (second from right)
Zion Oil CEO Richard Rinberg reported in his July 31 weekly update to shareholders that the Ma’anit-Rehoboth #2 was at 16,400 feet and approaching its ‘ultimate target depth’ of 18,040 feet. At 18,040 feet Zion is expected to discontinue drilling and begin Permian logging – meaning, sending a testing instrument down into the well to determine what hydrocarbons (oil and gas) exist, in what quantities and at what depths.
Rinberg reported that, at16,400 feet, the crew was drilling through ‘a hardened fine-grained sedimentary rock.’ What that means at this point is anyone’s guess, but I was reminded of a passage from my book, Breaking the Treasure Code: the Hunt for Israel’s Oil about sedimentary rock.
“The final thing an oil prospect needs is a seal; a lid that keeps the oil in one place until man can discover it, drill a well and bring it to the surface. Since oil and gas is lighter than water (in most cases) and since reservoir rock is usually filled with water, the oil and gas will rise, floating up over time through natural fractures in the subsurface rocks, eventually displacing the water in the reservoir rocks.
“The seal, or a cap, above the reservoir rock keeps the oil and gas from migrating any further, so it will collect in the reservoir rock in sufficient quantities to make getting at it worth while. Remember all that tightly packed dolomitic limestone up in the Jurassic era? The Jurassic limestone structure that prevented any worthwhile oil and gas discoveries turned out to be the perfect seal for holding the deeper oil and gas reservoirs in place!”
I was talking about a possible cap over Triassic oil in the book. Could the ‘hardened fine-grained sedimentary rock’ at 16,400 feet be a possible cap over the top of Permian hydrocarbons? I don’t know; it’s an interesting possibility. Remember though, this is just conjecture on my part. Zion Oil isn’t saying anything, nor should they; they’re not in the conjecture business. If and when Zion has confirmation of what lies at the bottom of Ma’anit-Rehoboth #2, they’ll let us know. Until then, we’ll keep the faith.
On a completely unrelated note, I heard today that placards are being made for posting on Zion’s Ma’anit-Rehoboth operational buildings and offices. The placards contain a single passage from the biblical book of Numbers: “Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well! Sing about it … ” (21:17) I’ll go along with that.
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How much oil do they expect to find?
At a cost of around $10 million for the well, I’m sure they’re counting on a lot. Truthfully, there’s no way of knowing. They can do studies and take sonar readings and magnetic tests, and in the end they’ve just got to drill and see what’s down there. On the other hand, would you spend $10 million unless all your tests indicated that there was a darned good chance of finding oil?
It has been a week since the last report. When they are this close why can they not give a daily update, or at least every 2 or 3 days?