Oil found

By Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel news

An Israeli oil prospecting and production firm announced it has struck a commercial amount of the black substance in central Israel, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.


Arad oil drill.

Photo by: Daniel Bar-On
Givot Olam Oil Ltd notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange of the find in its "Megev Five" drill near the town of Rosh Ha’ayin, saying it can produce 470 barrels of oil a day.


The Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry said in response that the ministry's head of oil affairs had not yet received the relevant test results, thus preventing it from declaring a commercial amount of oil.


The prospected find comes in the wake of an unrepresented amount of natural resources being discovered in Israel in recent months.

Last month, the U.S. firm Noble Energy, which together with its Israeli partners has been carrying out exploratory drilling at three sites off the Haifa coast, raised its reserve estimate at the Tamar field by 15%, to 238 billion cubic meters.

The firm also announced it would start natural gas exploration at the Leviathan offshore prospect off Israel's coast in the fourth quarter of this year. The latter announcement came in the wake of estimates of 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the prospect.