Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm:
The London-based World Energy Council says Israel’s Shfela Basin, a half-hour drive south of Jerusalem, holds 250 billion barrels of recoverable shale oil, possibly making the energy-vulnerable country (as expressed by The Wall Street Journal) “the world’s newest energy giant.” With reserves of 260 billion barrels, Saudi Arabia would remain the world’s No. 1 oil country – though not, perhaps, for long. Howard Jonas, CEO of U.S.-based IDT Corp., the company that owns the Shfela Basin concession, says there is much more oil under Israel than under Saudi Arabia: Perhaps, he says, twice as much.
Even with a mere 250 billion barrels, the Shfela Basin (or 238 square kilometres of it) would make Israel the third-largest holder of shale reserves in the world – right behind the U.S. with 1.5 trillion barrels and China with 355 billion barrels. Assuming for the moment that Mr. Jonas is correct in his calculations, the U.S. and Israel would together hold shale reserves in excess of two trillion barrels: Enough oil to fuel these two countries (at combined consumption of eight billion barrels a year) for more than 200 years.
And the discovery of further vast energy reserves in the United States and Israel progresses at an accelerated (and now often frenzied) pace. With shale, everything depends on technology – and the prospects are encouraging. In the Texas shale play known as Eagle Ford, for example, 12 companies will drill 3,000 wells in the next year, all of them within spitting distance (as The New York times put it) “of a forsaken South Texas village” notable only for its derelict gas stations and rusting warehouses. Elsewhere in the country, thousands more wells will be drilled with new technology that cuts drilling time, per well, to 25 days from 65.
According to the Times, 20 of these shale oil plays could increase U.S. oil production by 25 per cent in the next 10 years. “This is very big and it’s coming fast,” says U.S. energy expert Daniel Yergin, chairman of the energy research company IHS CERA. “This is like adding another Venezuela or another Kuwait – except that these fields are in the U.S.”
via With its oil treasure, Israel gets a shield from tyranny – The Globe and Mail.
Oh, wait, they’re not Arabs; so we cannot label them terrorists and take their oil. My bad. 😀
Of course, I am being my normal sarcastic self…..or am I? 😯