More than $75,000,000 has been invested during the past six years in prospecting and developing Israel’s only significant oil find, the Heletz field, according to a report in the Israel Government Yearbook which will be published this week. Despite intensive exploration, the report declared, the Heletz field supplies less than 10 percent of Israel’s annual consumption of 100,000 tons of oil.
About half of the total investment has been made by outside oil companies who have had less luck in striking oil than domestic companies who originally found the Heletz field. Experts here felt that because of this, most of the investments in the future were likely to be made by Israel firms, including the new National Oil Company which recently sold 10,000,000 pounds worth of stock in a public sale.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
