"Noble Energy gave distorted impression every drilling hits bulls-eye"

"However much it pains to say it, investors' money, especially money of private investors, which was lost in offshore exploratory wells, contributes to the maturing of the market. Until the string of failures, which began at Myra and Sarah, a very distorted impression emerged, caused by the discoveries for which Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL) was responsible, that wherever you drill, you'll hit the bulls-eye," Poalim Sahar analyst Yoav Burgan told "Globes", ahead of an energy conference by Eco Energy Ltd., a financial and strategic consultancy firm, at Kfar Hamaccabiah on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Burgan advises looking at a similar case at another place in the world, which could indicate the further evolution of Israel's energy exploration industry. "One of the places from which lessons can be drawn about how to behave, after an initial success followed by a string of failures, is the Falkland Islands," he said. "In 2010, there was a nice oil discovery, followed by a natural gas discovery, after which came a string of failures and dry holes, one of which belonged to Noble Energy. This led to a string of mergers, and players began to combine forces. We should consider this solution here too, while bringing in a world-class operator."

Leumi Capital Markets analyst Ella Fried said, "Noble Energy's success was not just because of its capabilities, but because it could choose the licenses it wanted. When it came to Israel, there was a lot of information about the area, and it used the fact that it was the pioneer here and knew how to examine new territory. It chose the licenses which it thought would yield the best results. It was offered the Myra and Sarah licenses more than once, but it rejected them. This proves that its success was not just because of the probabilities in seismic surveys, because the chances of finding gas discoveries in these two licenses were higher than the probability of discoveries at Tamar and subsequently at Leviathan."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 18, 2013

"Noble Energy gave distorted impression every drilling hits bulls-eye"

Poalim Sahar analyst Yoav Burgan said that until the string of failures, which began at Myra and Sarah, a very distorted impression emerged, caused by the success of Noble Energy.