(Forbes) Jonathan Baron and David Wurmser - Israel has discovered in excess of 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The debate in Israel has juxtaposed the energy security advantages of maintaining a large strategic natural gas reserve against the economic and other benefits of export, which requires scale to justify the considerable capital expenditures to build the required infrastructure. Israeli natural gas consumption currently equals roughly 200 billion cubic feet per year. Israel possesses ample supplies to ensure energy security in the power sector for a generation. Even assuming robust domestic demand growth and limited future discoveries, Israel will enjoy a large supply buffer once current reserves are developed. Offshore Israel remains in the early stages of exploration. The well-established pattern of such development suggests that the natural gas discoveries to date represent only a fraction of the total recoverable resource. Based on other basins, current discoveries in the Israeli Levant Basin likely are only a fraction of the total technically recoverable resources.
2012-10-19 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive