WORLD> Middle East
Natural gas reserve in northern Israel bigger than expected
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-08 16:41

JERUSALEM: The natural gas reserve discovered off the shores of northern Israel's Haifa city, is approximately 25 to 30 percent richer than previously assessed, local daily The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday.

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After drilling, US oil operator Noble Energy Inc. said that the site, previously assessed to hold more than 142 billion cubic meters (BCM) of natural gas, may in fact hold as much as 180 BCM, according to the report.

The potential revenue from selling gas from the offshore reserve may reach $30 billion to $35 billion, it added.

At the end of April, drilling to verify the size of the natural gas reserve was conducted at a site dubbed Tamar 2, north of Tamar 1.

Over the last few days, electronic testing suggested that the amounts of natural gas at the Tamar reserve were higher than initially expected.