Israel Opportunity ups Pelagic oil, gas estimates

The Pelagic licenses have additional unrisked resources of 530 million barrels of oil, or 5.5 TCF of gas.

17 June 12 16:28, Globes' correspondent

Israel Opportunity Energy Resources LP (TASE: ISOP.L) today announced that the Pelagic licenses, located between Leviathan and Cyprus's Block 12, have additional unrisked resources of 530 million barrels of oil (oil case) or 5.5 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas (gas case), according to the updated resources report by Ryder Scott Company LP. The Pelagic licenses have an additional prospect to Leviathan, which was not included in the first report. The geologic probability for the Leviathan prospect is 12.3%.

The associated condensate for the entire prospect, includes 19.3 million barrels in the upper strata (of which 1.6 million barrels are conditional resources), and 500 million barrels of condensate in the deep strata (gas case) or 3.5 TCF of natural gas (gas case). The Pelagic licenses' unrisked resources in the strata known as the "Tamar Sands" are estimated at 6.7 TCF of natural gas (of which 0.5 TCF is conditional resources and 6.2 TCF are prospective resources).

In addition, in the deep strata of the Pelagic licenses, there is the potential for the discovery of 19.3 TCF of natural gas and 500 million barrels of condensate (gas case), or 2 billion barrels of oil and approximately 3.5 TCF of natural gas (oil case).

The geologic probability of success for the target Tamar Sands strata range from 28.5% for the Yoad prospect to 76.7% for the Aphrodite prospect. The Aphrodite prospect alone has the potential of approximately 3.7 TCF of gas (contingent and prospective resources) in the area of the Pelagic licenses. The geologic probability of success for the deeper target strata range between 5.3% and 12.3%.

For the sake of comparison, Tamar has 9 TCF of natural gas and Leviathan has 16 TCF of natural gas. The latest report from the Leviathan 1 well, which is targeting deep strata, indicate the discover of "heavy natural gas" in the deeper strata.

There are five deep-water Pelagic licenses - Aditya, Ishai, Lela, Yahav, and Yoad - covering two million dunam (500,000 acres) 170 west of Haifa, between Leviathan's Ratio Yam and Block 12, which includes the Aphrodite structure, in Cypriot waters. Israel Opportunity owns 10% of the licenses, Beny Steinmetz and Teddy Sagi each own 42.5%, and Norway's AGR Group Inc. owns 5%.

Israel Opportunities' share price was unchanged at NIS 0.22 today, giving a market cap of NIS 166 million.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 17, 2012

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