Drilling for oil
Drilling for oilIsrael news photo

Oil developments: A group of Israeli and other Jewish investors has purchased a majority stake in a Ukrainian gas field, while the Oil Council decides who will get to drill off Ashdod.

Moshe Hirshberg, an Australian-Israeli, heads the group that has purchased a 70 percent share in the rights to develop a 600-square kilometer natural gas field in Ukraine. The purchase price was $16 million.

"Early tests show that there are gas deposits [in the Ukraine field] between 500 meters and 2.5 kilometers deep," said Mendel Motchkin, a partner in the purchasing group. The company has committed itself to conduct drills in addition to those that have already been carried out, at a cost of several tens of millions of dollars.

Motchkin, a resident of the United States, is also a partner in the AEI company that holds the rights to develop the Heletz oil field, south of Ashkelon. The Heletz drilling site was Israel's first oil find, back in 1955, and remains Israel's only commercially successful site. However, it is believed that large oil deposits remain five kilometers underground, and the company is hoping to soon begin drilling for it. The field is 230 square kilometers in size, and produces approximately 200 barrels a day. AEI is represented in Israel by Attorney Mordechai Tzivin of Tel Aviv.

In a related development, a final decision is expected late Monday afternoon as to which of several bidders will receive the rights to drill in the Mad-Ashdod oil field, south of Ashdod. Isramco, which lost its license to drill there two years ago, threatens to turn to the Supreme Court if the license is given to another concern, as the Oil Council plans.