Oil Shale Deposits: Israel and Jordan Have Them; Gaza And West Bank Don't

Back in January, I wrote that the huge gas fields found off the shores of Israel could be a big game changer--but one potential problem was the Lebanese claim that some of that was within its borders.

Now the news is focusing on the oil shale deposits that are in Israel itself. Judith Levy writes Look Out, Saudis? Israel Is Sitting On Huge Oil Shale Deposits. As with the gas fields, there is huge potential here--but the odd thing is the location of these deposits:

The World Energy Council has determined that about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem, in the Shfela Basin, there are oil shale deposits with the potential to yield 250 billion barrels of oil. This represents the world’s third-largest quantity of oil shale behind the US and China. Oilprice.com notes that both those countries would consume almost all their own production, so Israel could conceivably become the world’s largest exporter of shale oil.

The map to the left is from the US Geological Survey. The red stars represent oil shale deposits, which as you can see are scattered across sovereign Israel and Jordan. None were detected in the West Bank or Gaza.

Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves are 260 billion barrels, so we would appear to be in the running as an energy giant — particularly in view of the enormous natural gas finds at the Tamar and Leviathan fields. But there’s quite a distance yet to travel. For one thing, extracting oil from shale isn’t the same as drilling it out of the ground. It’s more difficult and more expensive.

Some serious minds are on the case, though. The Wall Street Journal reported two months ago that Harold Vinegar, perhaps the leading authority on the extraction of oil from shale, is heading up a start-up in Jerusalem called Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI). Larry Solomon, global warming skeptic and executive director of Canadian environmental agency Energy Probe, told Sun News this week that Vinegar’s team is backed by several powerful and motivated figures, including Dick Cheney, Baron Rothschild, and Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch holds a 0.5% stake in Genie Energy, IEI’s U.S.-based parent company.

Here is a video of that interview with Larry Solomon--on the new Sun News Network in Canada:



In response to a question about the effect Israel's oil shale deposits combined with the absence of any in Gaza and the West Bank, Solomon claims this should not create any new friction between Israel and the Arabs. He says that the Palestinians benefit from the successes in the Israeli economy and should welcome the potential benefits they would get.

I don't believe that for a minute.

Meanwhile, Elder of Ziyon writes about the tremendous potential here for Israel to rival Saudi Arabia. He also notes the potential for the attitude of Europe towards Israel to change when Israel becomes an oil powerhouse.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Saudi Arabia and Oil.