Who says Moses took us to the only country in the Middle East that doesn't have oil? It turns out that joke was wrong.my resume is going to Israel
More optimistic reports continue to flow from the giant Leviathan energy field off the Haifa coast. Following previous higher estimates of gas and “signs of oil,” the latest report points to a potential of 4 billion barrels of “black gold.”So does this mean gasoline for our cars will cost less than $6 per gallon?
The ramifications of the discovery are immense. If the estimates materialize, Israel will become self-sufficient in energy, enjoy a boon of employment for engineers and laborers, and will become an exporter of gas and oil. The shekel, barring a conflict with Hizbullah or Iran, may become rock-solid, dropping the representative rate; Israel's shekel is now worth about 26.3 cents (3.8 shekels) to the dollar.
The announcement of the new estimates states that there is a 17 percent chance of finding reserves equal to 3 billion barrels of oil at a depth of slightly more than a mile undersea. The oil field is slightly beneath the mammoth gas reserves that already have been estimated to contain 13 trillion cubic feet of gas.
There also is an 8 percent chance that another 1.2 billion barrels exist at an even lower level. Earlier this month, oil reserves at Rosh HaAyin, east of Tel Aviv and bordering Samaria, were estimated to have a possible potential of 1.5 billion barrels of oil but that commercial quantities will be much lower, if at all. Israel's estimated oil consumption is slightly less than 100 million barrels a year.
