With New Discovery In The Negev, Could Israel Become The Next Big Oil Exporter In The Mideast?

Judith Levy writes at Ricochet that Israel suddenly has an embarrassment of riches as new oil deposits have been found in the Negev:

A preliminary geological survey has indicated that there might be about 26 million barrels of recoverable oil a mile under the sand near two kibbutzim in the northern Negev. That would amount to about $2 billion at current prices. There might be 12 million additional barrels further down.


This news comes a day after drilling began on the Leviathan, a record-setting exploratory well in a massive natural gas field off the coast of Haifa. The area is thought to contain 16 trillion cubic feet of gas, and it might also contain oil. The Leviathan is twice as big as the Tamar natural gas field struck last year, and the Tamar is already expected to produce enough gas to supply Israel for twenty years.

And how big is the Tamar gas field? American based Noble is part of the consortium that is working on Leviathan and Tamr. According to AllBusiness.com:

Noble also operates the nearby Tamar gas field, which it said may hold twice the reserves of reserves in Britain and can supply Israel with enough gas for decades.

The new discovery has a distinct advantage over the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields--those fields are located in the Mediterranean, where Lebanon, and Hezbollah, have already claimed that the fields are not Israel's to drill.

The same cannot be said the new discovery in the Negev.
Then again, Hamas has not been heard from yet.

Technorati Tag: Leviathan and Tamar Gas Field and Israel Gas and Israel Oil.