US-Israeli group to start drilling for gas, oil off coast
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: A US-Israeli exploration group said on Sunday it will begin drilling for natural gas at a new site off Israel’s Mediterranean coast in October and that there was a small possibility of reaching oil under the gas. The main objective in drilling at the Leviathan prospect is to recover commercial amounts of natural gas.
Noble Energy, which leads the group and owns 40 percent of Leviathan, has said the well has gross unrisked mean resources of 16 trillion cubic feet of gas [453 billion cubic meters] and has a 50 percent geologic chance of success. The consortium also includes Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, which hold 22.7 percent each, and Ratio Oil Exploration with another 15 percent. Delek Drilling and Avner are units of conglomerate Delek Group. The group said in a statement they will be drilling at a depth of 5,095 meters for natural gas. It said that a secondary target would be to drill for oil at depths of 5,800 to 7,200 meters. The upper layer has gross unrisked mean resources of 3 billion barrels of oil but the probability of geological success is 17 percent. The lower layer is estimated to have 1.2 billion barrels of oil but its probability of success is just eight percent. Israeli energy shares were up 6 to 9 percent.
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