American Company to Start Deep Drilling of Oil in Israel

Deep drilling for oil in the State of Israel will begin soon on acreage jointly held between Pan-Israel Oil Company, Inc., and Mediterranean Petroleum Corporation in Israel, newly-formed corporations which were recently admitted to trading on the American Stock Exchange, it was announced today at a news conference.

Both companies are under the leadership of William F. Buckley, a veteran international oil executive. A total of 500,000 shares of common stock recently was placed on the American Stock Exchange by Pan-Israel and Mediterranean Petroleum, which jointly hold a license covering the impressive Kurnub structure in the Negev Desert. This structure, which is 15 miles by six miles, embraces almost the entire 80,000 acres of the license. It is almost double the size of the structure on which the world’s largest oil field at Burgan in the Persian Gulf area is located.

According to Mr. Buckley, Pan-Israel and Mediterranean Petroleum have drilled 17 core holes to date in sub-structure studies of Israel’s coastal plain area for a total of 16,000 feet. It was pointed out that these structure drilling operations, which are still underway, also serve as a preliminary drilling school for Israelis who will be working on the deep oil tests to follow.

The State of Israel granted its first licenses for oil exploration in May, 1953. Since then, an intensive exploration program has been launched and today a total of approximately 2,700,000 acres are being explored by six independent oil operators. The acreage licenses granted to Pan-Israel and Mediterranean Petroleum are in excess of 800,000 acres.

It was pointed out that in addition to the good oil prospects to be found in Israel, the companies now engaged in the search for oil were attracted to this area by several favorable factors. These are: 1: The existence of a strong local market for oil products in a highly mechanized country without other sources of energy; 2: The existence at the port of Haifa of a modern refinery capable of refining 85,000 barrels of oil daily, which at present is working only at a fraction of capacity due to a limited crude supply; and 3: The excellent network of roads which minimize the costs of exploration.

Speakers at the press conference pointed out that should a discovery be made in Israel the companies are assured a local market of 40,000 to 50,000 barrels daily which could be processed at existing refining facilities, plus an advantage in transportation costs over crude oil from the Near East, if the discoveries are substantial enough to permit export. Also, it was noted that huge investments, such as in camps and pipelines, are not needed in Israel, as is generally the case in Middle East exploration.

In addition to Mr. Buckley, the press conference was addressed by Sidney Schaefer, internationally known oil geologist and geophysicist, who is acting as consultant to the Israel oil exploration venture; Gerson H. Brodie, a petroleum geologist; and Israel B. Brodie, who has been a leader in the development of the chemical and petrochemical industries in Israel for more than three decades.