“We have spent more than NIS 110 million, and we have waited four years for the district committee,” IEI VP Business Development Moshe Gabay told “Globes,” after the company’s shale oil project was rejected two weeks ago by the Jerusalem District Committee for Planning and Building
IEI and the Ministry of Infrastructure have been working for years on theoil shaleproject, but two weeks ago the District Committee accepted the positions of the environmental groups, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and the local residents, and rejected the pilot to test the feasibility of extracting oil from the earth in the Adulam region.
The pilot site is a 20,000 square meter (5 acre) lot alongside Route 35. The method of extraction is based on warming rocks at a 300 meter depth, which contain a high concentration of oil. The rocks are heated to a temperature of 300° Celsius by heating elements that are inserted into the earth, and the heat “releases” the desired fuels to the surface.
IEI claims that the shale oil reservoirs in the Shfela area of Israel are estimated at 150 billion barrels; enough to meet Israel’s needs for many decades, thereby reducing dependence on imported oil that comes primarily from Eastern Europe via Turkey.
Gabay claims that the project was not approved because “We did not succeed in explaining to the committee members how we intend to carry out the pilot. For years, we worked on mapping the site, receiving permits, lab trials, and more and more tests. But when we reached the committee, everything sounded too complicated to them. We proposed a pilot that is different from how commercial extraction would be carried out. "
According to Gabay, in the end, fear was the determining factor. “There was a massive intimidation campaign from the environmentalists, who claimed that the extraction would harm the aquifers,” he said, “Experts from the Water Authority and the Hydrological Association determined unequivocally that the aquifers are not in danger, because there is a sealing layer of rock that is more than 200 meters thick. Global shale oil authority Dr. Harold Vinegar, who worked for the global oil giant Shell, left everything and moved to Israel because he is aware of the importance of the project, and tried to explain that the aquifer waters would not be harmed at all. The head of hydrology at the Water Authority Yakov Livshitz explained that the project can’t harm the water. Benny Begin, who was head of the Geological Survey of Israel said it can’t cause harm, and every geology student understands that it can’t cause harm. But nothing helped.”
According to Gabay, “The option of turning to the High Court of Justice seems very reasonable at this stage. In parallel, we are formulating a path that will enable us to prove to the relevant authorities and the planning authorities that the fear of shale oil production in the Shfela was not justified. Perhaps we will issue another pilot program plan, a new license on a smaller area, or a demo of a small commercial facility.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 17, 2014
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