A significant gas presence was reported from the Karish 1 well located about 75 kilometers northwest of Haifa, said The Delek Group, an Israel based conglomerate and gas provider. While official analyses of the drilling results will be conducted by Netherland, Sewell – Oil & Gas Engineering Consulting Services (NSAI) and published within the next two months, the Delek Group and its partners are stressing that there is likely a sizable gas presence in the well, which is located within the Alon C basin, near the already tapped into Tamar basin which is also rich in resources.

Preliminary estimates from NSAI have revealed that Karish 1 probably contains about 57 billion cubic meters of gas, the Delek Group said. Through two of its subsidiaries, Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, the Delek Group holds a total of 53 percent of interest in Karish 1, while Houston-based Noble Energy holds 47%. All of these partners are also stakeholders in the much larger Tamar and Leviathan projects.

“This is proof of the power of the Israeli gas industry and of the great gas potential that exists off the coast of Israel, and we must keep up the momentum,” said Delek Drilling chairman and Avner Oil Exploration CEO Gideon Tadmor. This future natural gas industry, Tadmor explained, will allow the State of Israel to thrive with an additional hundreds of billions of shekels that come from taxes and royalties generated from gas extraction.