“Sudan says it has signed an agreement with several Israeli oil companies, a potentially significant strategic move that will consolidate the Jewish state’s relations with the fledgling, oil-rich East African state.
“It will also bolster Israeli moves to counter Iranian inroads into the Red Sea and a major gunrunning route from the Revolutionary Guards base at Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to the Gaza Strip via Sudan.”
“Gas exploration companies Noble Energy Inc., Delek Group Ltd. and others have discovered enough natural gas to supply Israel’s domestic needs for the next 150 years, an investigative report published by Bloomberg news agency claimed on Saturday. ‘The gas would be worth about $240 billion, equal to Israel’s annual economic output, based on today’s prices in the UK,’ the report claimed.”
“An American-Israeli drilling consortium on Sunday announced the discovery of a new Mediterranean natural gas field about 120 km northwest of the Haifa coast. The Noble Energy-Delek Group said in a statement that the find lies beneath 5,500 meters of sand and water, in 40-meter thick gas- bearing strata, according to the Globes business daily. The report said the field may contain between 34 billion to 37 billion cubic meters of gas.”
“Iran is contemplating violently shutting down shipping in the Persian Gulf as one of several counterattack options if Israel strikes its nuclear facilities, regional and intelligence analysts say. Such attacks would present the Obama administration with the option of undertaking a limited war against Iran by striking its warships and shore-based anti-ship missiles to keep the Gulf open for business.”
“The new energy order is founded on rock – the shale that traps vast stores of energy in deposits around the world. One of the largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel’s Shfela basin, comparable to Saudi Arabia’s entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil – has until now been unexploited, partly because the technology required has been expensive, mostly because the multinational oil companies that have the technology fear offending Muslims. “None of the major oil companies are willing to do business in Israel because they don’t want to be cut off from the Mideast supply of oil,” explains Howard Jonas, CEO of IDT, the U.S. company that owns the Shfela concession through its subsidiary, Israel Energy Initiatives. “
