AN OIL rig carrying out exploratory drilling is hardly a rare sight in the Middle East; but this is no ordinary place. Israeli flags fly on it, though no other country in the world recognises Israel’s sovereignty over the area. A few miles to the east, Islamist rebel groups are fighting a bloody war. And few people ever expected that significant amounts of oil might lie there at all, under a dormant volcanic field. Welcome to the Golan Heights.
Israeli and American oilmen believe they have discovered a bonanza in this most inconvenient of sites. After three test-drillings, Yuval Bartov, the chief geologist of Genie Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of American-based Genie Energy, says his company thinks it has found an oil reservoir “with the potential of billions of barrels”.
Veterans of Israel’s energy sector are sceptical. Despite many optimistic starts, only two small oilfields in Israel have ever been commercially exploited. The indications are that the Golan field is of a different magnitude. But since there is little experience anywhere of drilling for oil under once-volcanically-active areas, it will take more comprehensive...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1MkjrwE
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