Huge Gas Reserves Discovered in Israel

Curt Here...

There is some very interesting and exciting news to report to you today. It is being reported that a very large natural gas reserve has been discovered off the coast of Israel near the town of Haifa. This find will meet Israel's natural gas needs for at least the next 15 years and will vastly reduce their dependence on foreign sources.

To say this is big news would be an understatement. Not only does this have future positive economic ramifications for Israel but possibly prophetic implications as well. Let me explain. We know from reading Ezekiel 38-39 that the Gog/Magog war begins with God putting hooks in the jaw of Gog. These hooks will cause Gog to devise an evil plan and will cause him to gather a coalition of Islamic nations to attack Israel to gather spoil and plunder the land. Most scholars say that Gog is the name of the leader and Magog is the country of Russia.

Here are a few Scriptures to review.

Ezekiel 38:2-4,11-13

2. "Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him
3. and say, `Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.
4. "I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords;


11. and you will say, `I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will go against those who are at rest, that live securely, all of them living without walls and having no bars or gates,
12. to capture spoil and to seize plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places which are now inhabited, and against the people who are gathered from the nations, who have acquired cattle and goods, who live at the center of the world.'
13. "Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its villages will say to you, `Have you come to capture spoil? Have you assembled your company to seize plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to capture great spoil?' "'

Many prophetic scholars through the years have speculated that the "spoil" that causes Gog to attack Israel is oil or natural gas. The problem is that until today Israel did not contain any oil or natural gas reserves worth talking about.

Is today's news the beginning of the hook in the jaw that leads to the Gog/Magog war?

Stay tuned.

Curt

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Huge gas reserves discovered off Haifa

Jan. 18, 2009
Sharon Wrobel , THE JERUSALEM POST

A historic natural gas reservoir found offshore from Haifa is poised to meet Israel's natural gas demand for about 15 years and reduce the country's dependence on gas imports from Egypt and offshore from Gaza.

The discovery of the natural gas field 90 km. offshore from Haifa, known as Tamar, was made by a US-Israel consortium including the Delek Group, through its subsidiaries Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, Isramco Negev 2, Dor Gas Exploration and US oil operator Noble Energy Inc.

Preliminary estimates indicate that the Tamar field might contain over 88 billion cubic meters of gas.

"If the Tamar site opposite the Haifa coast succeeds in producing the significant quantities of natural gas predicted, we are talking about a revolution which will have an impact on the Israeli economy for the coming generations," said Dan Halman, CEO of Halman-Aldubi Group. "The vast reservoir is poised to bring down electricity prices, reduce the country's dependence on gas from foreign countries, in particular from Egypt, and thereby turn Israel from a gas importer into a gas exporter."

Yoav Burgan, analyst at Leader Capital Markets, believes in the possibility of long-term deals resulting from the Tamar well which could generate a potential value of $15.5 billion.

However Halman cautioned that despite the optimism it was too early to celebrate.

"Big celebrations are still premature," said Halman. "It needs to be remembered that the drilling is complicated and production possibilities are not yet completely clear. In addition, gas transportation is a much more complex and expensive process compared with oil transportation."

Similarly Yuval Zehira, head of the research department at IBI Investment House, raised doubts over the economic viability of the project.

"For the time being it remains very difficult to assess the profitability of the project given that we don't have figures regarding the initial cost of drilling, production costs, the time it will take to sell the gas, and at what price, and the effect of competition with Egyptian gas," said Zehira. "At this point it seems that the project is more of a strategic asset than an economic one."

The Tamar prospect, located under 1,676 meters of water, was drilled to a total depth of about 4,900 meters. Production testing at Tamar will be performed after the well is completed.

Gal Reiter, analyst at Clal Finance Batucha estimated that the production tests would cost about $20 million and should be completed in about three weeks.

Noble Energy, which operates the well with a 36% working interest, and its Israeli partners said that they might keep the rig to drill two additional wells in the basin.

"This is one of the most significant prospects that we have ever tested and appears to be the largest discovery in the company's history," said Charles D. Davidson, CEO and chairman of Noble Energy Inc.

Following the announcement of the discovery, shares of Delek Drilling, which holds 15.6% of the Tamar prospect, jumped 41.7%, and shares of Avner Oil Exploration, which holds another 15.6%, surged 21.4%. Both companies are owned by billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva. Shares of fuel exploration company Isramco, which owns 28.7%, leaped 123.8%.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232265973374&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull