Two Texas oil specialists left yesterday for Israel by plane from the Idlewild airport here to begin drilling for oil. Their oil rig left Houston for Israel aboard ship two weeks ago, after public ceremonies at which leaders of the Israel Bond drive in Texas bade “Godspeed” to the Israel-American Line’s S.S.La Orilla, bearing the million-dollar rig shipped by Pontiac Petroleum, Ltd. of Calgary, Canada.
The rig will be set up in early September near the Mediterranean Sea, between Haifa and Tel Aviv, where it will drill to a depth of 9,000 feet in its probe for the Holy Land’s first oil well. The equipment, shipped from Houston, includes more than twenty miles of drill pipe and tubing; 150, 000 bags of chemically treated mud; a fleet of specialized automotive equipment including a 70 foot trailer-truck, and a 150-foot derrick that can drill to a depth of 10,000 feet.
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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.